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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



Foreign Religious Series 



Edited by 
R. J. COOKE, D. D. 



Second Series. i6mo. cloth. Each 40 cents, net. 



DO WE NEED CHRIST FOR 

COMMUNION WITH GOD ? 

By Professor Ludwig Lemme, of the University 
of Heidelberg 



ST. PAUL AS A THEOLOGIAN 

(two parts) 
By Professor Paul Feine, of the University of Vienna 



THE NEW MESSAGE IN THE TEACHING 
OF JESUS 

By Professor Philipp Bachmann, of the University 
of Erlangen 



THE PECULIARITY OF THE RELIGION 
OF THE BIBLE 

By Professor Conrad Von Orelli, of the University 
of Basle 



OUR LORD 

By Professor K. Muller, of the University of Erlangen 



OUR LORD 

Belief in the Deity 
of Christ 



. 



By 



E. F. KARL MLJLLER, D.D. 

Professor of Theology in Erlangen 






NEW YORK: EATON & MAINS 
CINCINNATI : JENNINGS & GRAHAM 



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Copyright, 1908, by 
EATON & MAINS. 



OUR LORD 

"The Lord" — this is the title by which, 
best of all, the most ancient Christendom 
already addressed its Master and Redeemer : 
"Lord," the title by which it used to call 
upon him. In itself there is nothing uncom- 
mon or superhuman in such a designation. 
Just as in our language the word is capable 
of varied interpretation. Whether we have 
to deal with a compliment which often 
means little (i Sam. i. 15; Matt. 21. 30; 
25. 1 1 ; John 4. 1 1 ; 20. 25), or with the term 
of real subordination and dependence which 
again obtains a different meaning according 
to the rank of the addressed (Matt. 13. 2j; 
2 Sam. 18. 31 ; 19. 20), must be ascertained 
from the situation. Subjects speak today of 
their "lord," "master," or "chief." Orig- 
inally it may have been otherwise when the 
disciples of Jesus addressed their rabbi as 
"lord," for which the title "teacher" or "mas- 
ter" may also be used. According to Mark 
it was the only current one (Matt. 8. 25, 
comp. Mark 4. 38; Matt. 10. 24 sq. ; John 
J 3- I3> comp. Matt. 9. 11; 17. 24). To be 



6 Our Lord 

sure a personality which, not only in the 
closest circle of the disciples (John 21. 7), 
but also in a somewhat broader fellowship 
was simply called "the Lord" (Mark 11. 3), 
seemed especially important. In frequent 
cases in which outsiders addressed Jesus 
thus, it must be left undecided whether they 
simply meant the respectable man, especially 
the rabbinic teacher (Matt. 8. 2, 6, 8, etc.; 
comp. 8. 19; 22. 16 and 17. 15 with Mark 
9. 17), or whether here and there it indi- 
cated something of an acknowledgment of 
royal Messianic dignity (Matt. 15. 22; 20. 
30 sq.). At any rate an enhanced content 
of the title would follow more and more 
from an enhanced estimate of the person of 
Jesus. The Gospel of Matthew recorded 
from the mouth of Jesus an appeal "Lord, 
Lord" which is certainly not addressed to 
him in that instance as to a master ever so 
revered, but as the Messiah and Judge of 
the world (Matt. 7. 21 sq., comp. 25. 37). 
Thus this address borders on the line of the 
human measure : as one has only one God as 
Father, thus also only one Master and Lord 
(Matt. 23. 8 sqq., comp. 1 Cor. 12. 5 sq. ; 
Ephes. 4. 5 sq.). 



Our Lord 7 

We see these declarations fully developed 
immediately after the close of the earthly life 
of Jesus, in the congregation believing on 
him. We have a sketch of the first Pente- 
costal sermon by Peter, the drift of which 
for practical religious purpose is to put di- 
rectly the Lord Christ in place of God, the 
Lord, In the miraculous outpouring of the 
Spirit which came upon the assembled disci- 
ples, Peter saw the fulfillment of God's 
prophecy by the prophet Joel (Acts 2. 16 
sqq. ; Joel 3. 1 sqq.) : "I will pour out my 
Spirit upon all flesh/' Since the prophets 
had held out these prospects for the last 
days, the last days had now begun : the great 
and notable day of the Lord was imminent 
and with it the downfall of the universe. 
Whoever wished to be saved must cling to 
God himself and thus fulfill the prophecy 
which the prophet gives : "Whosoever shall 
call on the name of the Lord shall be saved." 
Who is this Lord? As a matter of course 
the prophet thought of the Lord of heaven 
and earth, of the everlasting rock upon 
which alone one could stand when every- 
thing else shook; for he wrote literally: 
"Whosoever shall invoke the name Jahveh" 



8 Our Lord 

(Jehovah). Since the Jews in later times 
did not venture to mention this most holy 
name but substituted for it "Lord," even in 
quoting biblical texts, occasion was given in 
this case to think at the same time of Jesus. 
But according to this the designation by 
which he was long ago addressed soared to 
a very unique height. The Lord who was 
to be called upon in order to obtain everlast- 
ing security is Jesus. If the Jews had no 
more a name of God, because God himself 
had been removed to an inaccessible dis- 
tance, the disciples of Jesus had a name to 
which they clung and by which in confession 
and invocation they reverently approached 
the gracious God himself (Acts 2. 36) : 
"God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye 
have crucified, both Lord and Christ." Je- 
hovah no longer is called upon, but the Lord 
Jesus Christ; in whom was exactly that 
which Israel once had in his covenant — God : 
yea, the completion of all that which Israel 
expected from this covenant-God. One did 
not merely think on the nameless God, in 
whom we live and have our being, but called 
upon and apprehended him whose mercy 
was felt in the experimental facts of history. 



Our Lord 9 

These were nearly the experiences and 
thoughts which one wished to express by 
calling Jesus the "Lord" in the full sense. 
Modern men may find it hard to speak in a 
language which the first professors would 
recognize as their opinions. The common 
intention of all, however, who at all times 
called the man Jesus not merely their Mas- 
ter and Teacher, but in that very unique 
sense their Lord, was no doubt to lift this 
man somehow beyond the human measure 
and to put him over against all other men, as 
it were by the side of God. Consequently 
in the course of the development of dogma 
what we become accustomed to designate as 
the divinity of Christ, is contained in this 
invocation of Him as Lord. These lines of 
thought are familiar to all apostles alike. 
Paul also referred to the passage from Joel, 
when he extolled the saving power of the 
confession of Jesus as the Lord who brought 
us the presence of the gracious God (Rom. 
10. 6 sqq. ; 9. 13). "Jesus is the Lord" — 
thus reads the simple and weighty confes- 
sion in which the oldest professors expressed 
everything which they had in Jesus ( 1 Cor. 
12. 3). To distinguish their Lord from all 



io Our Lord 

others, they spoke indeed of the "Lord of 
Glory" ( i Cor. 2. 8 ; Jas. 2. 1 ) . In that lies 
his exaltation into the sphere of divine Maj- 
esty (see perhaps John i. 14). 

In the same direction points the second 
title which the Pentecostal preaching of 
Peter attributed to Jesus: God hath made 
him a "Messiah" or "Christ." Certainly the 
question cannot be that, for in the original 
Jewish idea the expected Messiah was some- 
thing else than a man. Prophecy seldom 
borders on a kind of divinity of the Messiah 
(Isa. 9. 5). From the title "the anointed" 
it could already be inferred that a person 
anointed with God's spirit and power was 
present to the mind. As the king was 
anointed, and thereby received a token of the 
divine help for his office, so the King of the 
future who was to consummate all hopes of 
Israel, was expected to be not merely an 
anointed one beside others but "the 
anointed" one, plainly, who in the fullness 
of the divine Spirit with which he was en- 
dowed, had to carry out not a certain and 
limited work but the work of God in general. 
At the same time he remained in general a 
human hero, whose one ideal image in later 



Our Lord ii 

times was enhanced to the fantastical, but 
not raised wholly beyond the human. 

With this Messianic expectation the hope 
is also expressed in the Old Testament that 
God himself should come for a deliverance 
of his people and seek out his flock (Isa. 40. 
9 sqq. ; Ezek. 34. 11; Mai. 3.1). With this 
view a purely human conceived Messiah 
could have well been provided for as pre- 
paring the way of God ; but it is characteris- 
tic that in the New Testament interpreta- 
tions of these prophetical passages, the 
Forerunner is not the Messiah but John the 
Baptist. He was the angel or messenger 
who was to prepare the way of Jehovah 
(Mark 1. 2; Matt. 11. 10; Luke 1. 17). He 
is the voice of one crying in the wilderness 
(Mark 1. 3) : "Prepare ye the way of the 
Lord." With this "Lord," however, coin- 
cided the subsequent Messiah — and we have 
arrived at the same result that Jesus ap- 
peared exalted into the sphere of God when 
one said of him that he was made both Lord 
and Christ. This consideration unites more 
readily with the human Messiah-picture, 
since there also the King whom God set 
upon his holy hill, acts much less in the 



12 Our Lord 

direction from below upward, than from 
above downward. He exercises the Lord's 
rule upon earth and thus stands entirely on 
God's side (Psa. 2. 2) : the kings of the 
earth set themselves "against the Lord, and 
against his anointed." When the victory is 
obtained, the song of triumph is heard 
(Rev. 11. 15): "The Kingdoms of this 
world are become (the Kingdoms) of our 
Lord, and of his Christ." Besides, when 
the first Christians ascribed to their Christ 
the world-judgment and with it the end of 
earthly history, they expected of him a truly 
divine function. 

With a vigorous rejection of this Chris- 
tian faith, a Jewish work belonging to the 
end of the first century puts the words into 
the mouth of the God who gave beginning 
to heaven and earth (4. Ezra 6. 6) : "Thus 
the end shall come alone by me and not by 
another one." But just this was the experi- 
ence of the Christians that in their Christ the 
saving God met them to whom they conf ess- 
ingly clung in the judgment and destruction 
of the world. This conviction they ex- 
pressed in the name above every name, at 
which naming every knee should bow (Phil. 



Our Lord 13 

2. 11): "The Lord Jesus Christ." What 
too often becomes for us a worn-out for- 
mula contained originally the whole fullness 
of the forceful statement: Jesus, the Mes- 
siah, is the Lord, that is, he stands for us in 
the place of God, the Lord. 

Let us understand what this means. It 
has always been the fashion that followers 
showed an adored genius enthusiastic ad- 
miration as "the divine master," or that 
courtly crouching servility, especially in the 
East, should address a ruler like a god. 
For the latter mode of expression many ex- 
amples have been adduced, especially from 
New Testament times, and it would be a task 
in itself to investigate more accurately the 
similarity and difference which existed be- 
tween such flourishes and belief in the divin- 
ity of Christ. Considering the copiousness 
of the biblical material which must be mas- 
tered in a few pages, we confine ourselves to 
the reference that the faith of the first church 
included a unique element which raised it 
from the start above the parallels of the 
apotheosis of endowed genius or divinely 
protected activity. Here the opinion is not 
merely that the excess of original genius 



14 Our Lord 

could be traced back only to divine inspira- 
tion — Jesus did not pass for a genius in the 
domain of religion who possibly made an 
unexpected discovery closed to the common 
mass, or disclosed "revelations," in the sense 
of startling evolutions. As soon as he was 
raised above all prophets and kings to the 
level of a "Lord and Messiah/' he broke 
through the circumference of everything be 
it ever so sublime and matchless, which was 
divinely influenced yet ever humanly work- 
ing. Over against us he is on the side of 
God. This cannot be otherwise if his serv- 
ice is in the unique domain of religion. 
Genius in the realm of art, science or politics 
always remains in the compass of human 
activity. But for the entire Jewish world- 
conception, in whose soil belief in the 
"Lord" grew, definite work on religious 
ground as a mere outflow even of the most 
inspired human activity influenced by the 
divine Spirit, is not at all conceivable. Greek 
intellectualism may be satisfied with a 
knowledge of God, which one may acquire 
and express, but on Jewish biblical soil one 
hungers after the meeting with God himself. 
A man, therefore, who fulfills all religious 



Our Lord 15 

hopes and whom his disciples on this account 
recognize not only as the political Messiah 
but as the consolation of Israel (Luke 2. 25, 
comp. Isa. 40. 1, 9 sq.), is moved without 
controversy to the side of God. 

To this instinctive feeling of the original 
faith ecclesiastical usage does justice, which 
does not speak of a "divinity" but of the 
"Godhead" of Christ. The proof, that with 
this interpretation of the belief in the Lord 
we apprehend the real sense of the first 
Christians, is the exclusiveness with which 
the divine predicate for Jesus is used. In 
the competition of schools and cliques many 
"divine masters" should finally find a place 
beside each other. Though the first Chris- 
tians were not the least able to conceive such 
an idea, it proved that they were in earnest 
about the singular position as Lord of their 
Christ. A New Testament book in which 
one imagines he hears now and then the most 
genuine sounds of primitive Christian feel- 
ing which may perhaps have become strange 
to us, the Revelation of John, exhibits to us 
in striking pictures the elevation of the cru- 
cified Jesus as Lord and Christ. The same 
adoring songs of praises resounded for Him 



1 6 Our Lord 

that sitteth upon the throne and for the 
Lamb (Rev. 5. 13; 7. 10); for the Lamb 
that was slain, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, 
hath prevailed and taken his seat on the 
throne of God (Rev. 3. 21 \j. 17; see 21. 22 
sq. ; 22. 1). We see no trace of a feeling 
that such an apotheosis could prejudice the 
majesty of the one God, and this on the soil 
of the stiff-monotheistic Judaism which 
never knew anything of demi-gods and wor- 
ship of heroes, and in a book which was 
keenly alive to the deification of even the 
highest creatures ( Rev. 19. 10; 22. 9 ) ! John 
was not conscious of any apotheosis, but 
simply of the acceptance of the King whom 
God had appointed as His divine representa- 
tive. Where one encountered heathenish 
deification of an earthly ruler, it was felt 
and opposed as awful blasphemy — not be- 
cause the worshiping adoration raised a false 
object to divine dignity, but because every 
apotheosis of a man was an abomination. 
It was a "name of blasphemy'' and a rob- 
bery of God's honor when the Roman em- 
peror called himself "Augustus," that is, 
divine majesty (Rev. 13. 1; 17. 3). Who- 
ever undertakes to dive into the real mean- 



Our Lord 17 

ing of the predicates of the Godhead which 
the first Christians attributed to their Lord, 
will not find it easy to press down this con- 
viction by supposed parallels to the level of 
that which was current in the history of reli- 
gion. The seriousness with which Jesus 
was wholly treated like God the Lord him- 
self, remains absolutely unprecedented. 

This will become still more evident by 
presenting to ourselves the position of the 
first Christians to their Lord in its essential 
details. The Christian stood to Christ in 
the religious and moral relation as one only 
can and should stand to God. One called 
upon the name of the Lord to be saved. At 
the same time the subtle difference of the 
Roman dogma between the worship of God 
and the invocation of the saints was not yet 
invented. That lies in the line of heathen- 
ish apotheosis. In primitive Christianity He 
who was called upon actually stood in God's 
place, for one expected from him the very 
thing which God alone could give — absolu- 
tion from sin and salvation in judgment 
(Acts 2. 38; 22. 16; Rom. 10. 10 sqq.). 
How current this custom in prayer was may 
be seen from this, that the Christians were 



1 8 Our Lord 

mentioned as a people (Acts 9. 14, 21 J 
1 Cor. 1. 2; 2 Tim. 2. 22), "who call on the 
name of the Lord." We can also adduce 
from these some distinct examples: While 
Jesus addressed his Father with "Lord" 
(Matt. 11. 25), and before his death prayer 
to Him (Luke 23. 46) : "Father, into thy 
hands I commend my spirit," in the case 
of the first martyr, Stephen, the Lord Jesus 
himself took the place of the "Father" (Acts 
7. 58) : "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." 
How self-evident this mediation was we 
see from the benediction-formula current 
in the apostolic epistles : "The grace of our 
Lord Jesus Christ be with you all" (2 Cor. 
13. 14; comp. Rom. 1. 7, etc.; 2 John 1). 
Grace in the full sense here meant that which 
only God can bestow, but with him the ex- 
alted Christ is completely united. When 
Paul once recorded of his prayer for deliver- 
ance from hard temptation and burden 
(2 Cor. 12. 8) : "For this thing I besought 
the Lord thrice," it may be doubtful whether 
God is meant or Christ; but the latter is 
more probable because the answer is very 
proper in the mouth of the crucified and 
risen Saviour runs : "My grace is sufficient 



Our Lord 19 

for thee : for my strength is made perfect in 
weakness !" But the very fact that one may 
sometimes waver between God and Christ 
when using the term "Lord/* also that 
speech glided unawares from the one to the 
other, suggests how completely Christ was 
raised in the apostolic thought to the level 
of God (for instance, Mark 16. 20; Acts 2. 
47; 8. 22; 9. 28, 31; Jas. 5. 11; Rom. 12. 11; 
Ephes. 5. 10, comp. with Rom. 12. 2). 

In moral respects also the apostolic faith 
connected itself absolutely with the author- 
ity of the "Lord" and his words. For the 
moral judgment of Paul it made a telling 
difference whether in a certain question one 
was restricted to one's own, though spiritu- 
ally-influenced, thinking, or, whether we 
have before us a clear word or injunction 
of the Lord (1 Cor. 7. 10, 12, 25). Such a 
one is of equal weight as a precept of God. 
The apostle in all his acts knew himself de- 
pendent on his Lord Christ, who by his 
death and resurrection obtained a lordly 
right over the living and dead (Rom. 14. 
6 sqq.) : "for whether we live, we live unto 
the Lord ; and whether we die, we die unto 
the Lord." Thus speaks a man who could 



20 Our Lord 

not forcibly enough warn against the bond- 
age of men (i Cor. 7. 23). The Christ 
whom he served he considered not as a mere 
man, and certainly not in the sense that per- 
haps he were not a man, but so that in all 
things which he did and taught us he stood 
on the side of God. 

Only from this self-evident feeling do we 
understand opposite sayings like these (Gal. 
1. 1, 10, 12), that Paul meant to be an apos- 
tle not of men, neither by man but by Jesus 
Christ; that he received not his gospel of 
man, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ : 
"for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the 
servant of Christ." One may discover dif- 
ferent and perhaps opposing points of view 
in the further extended theories with which 
the different apostles established the divine 
position of Christ but in their decisive prac- 
tical attitude no unbiased inquirer would be 
able to show the shadow of a contradiction. 
The position of a Paul was here the same as 
that of the simple believers of the primitive 
church who were unresponsive to high spec- 
ulations. Nowhere in the New Testament is 
there a trace that people who believed in 
Jesus at all had practically assessed him 



Our Lord 21 

otherwise than as the Messiah of God whom 
one invoked as God himself and to whom 
one submitted as to the divine Lord. 

It is our task to clearly point out 
this tremendous fact. The history of the 
world knew no greater riddle than this 
that the people who ate and drank with 
their Master, or knew at least that he 
died the death of a criminal, did not 
assert only that his spirit nevertheless 
worked on and that his work could not 
be destroyed, but they also believed that he 
was exalted to the throne of God and they 
awaited his coming again to the last judg- 
ment. Every man's fate would be decided 
by this exalted Lord. At the same time we 
do not have to deal with a view the mani- 
festation of which in a certain place and 
the gradual spread of which could be proved, 
whereby one could also observe how the 
apotheosis outgrew itself and threw a natu- 
rally human estimate more and more into 
the background. This may be asserted of 
the enlargement of the theories — but the 
salient point and the telling question as to 
the first origin of the practical belief in the 
"Lord" which laid at the bottom of all 



22 Our Lord 

theories, was not touched thereby at all. 
According to recent criticism it is no longer 
possible to construct an extensive, hidden 
development behind our documents in whose 
long course the gradual apotheosis of Jesus 
could be placed, for in the department of 
New Testament criticism a retrograde move- 
ment has taken place, not in the sense 
that all are agreed as to the "genuineness" 
and credibility of the essential writings, but 
in the sense that no serious inquirer can 
any more put considerable spaces of time be- 
tween the events and the composition of the 
earliest books of the New Testament writ- 
ings. The principal epistles of Paul were 
written about twenty years after Christ's 
death, and there is no indication in them 
that they had first to bring about a new esti- 
mate of the person of Christ. No one will 
assert that the estimate of Christ, as we have 
it in the discourses of Peter in the Acts of 
the Apostles, was a mere reflection of the 
Pauline teaching. Still more remote is the 
supposition that the oldest Gospel as that 
of Mark is usually considered, or the oldest 
collections of "Sayings of Jesus/' made by 
Matthew, had fully changed his picture on 



Our Lord 23 

the basis of additional dogmatic assumption. 
Thus one cannot get rid of the fact that in 
all these writings which originated not long 
after the death of Jesus, we meet with a 
harmonious adoration of the "Lord" which 
raised him far above prophetico-human 
measure and placed him on a level with God. 
By this we certainly do not mean to say that 
there was everywhere palpable belief in the 
"metaphysical" divine sonship of Jesus, that 
is, in the appearance of the divine nature or 
substance, of such categories the oldest 
Christians may have thought little or not at 
all. The discourses of the Acts of the Apos- 
tles whose point of view might best answer 
the prevalent popular faith, described Jesus 
as a man whom God acknowledged by 
signs and miracles, or whom he anointed 
with spirit and power for his work (Acts 
2. 22\ 10. 38, comp. Luke 24. 19). This 
human foundation could not be lost so long 
as Jesus was called "the Christ," that is, 
"the Anointed." Of the same "man" it 
is also said that God hath ordained that 
he should judge the world (Acts 17. 31), 
and (10. 36): "He is Lord of all." Of 
course it was God who thus exalted the 



24 Our Lord 

man Jesus (Acts 2. 36; 5. 31). If one 
could not assert that a long luxuriating in- 
crease of mythological poetry raised a 
hero of a long past to such heights, if one 
must rather admit that he has to deal with 
an event which effectuated itself in the bright 
light of history and on a soil singularly 
unsuited for fantastically heathenish deifica- 
tion, the question concerning reality or illu- 
sion becomes a burning one and cannot be 
decided without a moment's hesitation in 
favor of the latter possibility. With deeper 
insight modern theologians have perceived 
that the difficulty of transposing this super- 
natural history into a normally human proc- 
ess increased in the same degree as one, in 
fairness, relinquished the extravagances of 
a literary criticism which relegated the es- 
sential parts of the New Testament to the 
second century. 

Let us examine therefore the causes which 
led primitive Christendom to this matchless 
estimate of its Lord, and whether the same 
are still sufficient for us. 

The next and strongest point of support 
for belief in the "Lord and Messiah" was 
the certainty of Jesus' resurrection. Again 



Our Lord 25 

and again the apostolic preaching proved his 
identity by this practical proof (Acts 2. 24, 
32; 3. 15; 4. 10; 10. 40; 13. 30 sq.; 17. 31): 
"This Jesus, whom ye have crucified, hath 
God raised up, whereof we all are wit- 
nesses." The beginning of the first Epistle 
of Peter sounds like the shouting confession 
of the formerly hopeless disciple whom the 
resurrection of the Master awakened to a 
new hope (1. 3 sqq.) : "Blessed be the God 
and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which 
according to his abundant mercy hath begot- 
ten us again unto a lively hope by the resur- 
rection of Jesus Christ from the dead!" 
Paul, who knew not Christ after the flesh, 
would have considered this belief as unten- 
able if it had not been founded on the resur- 
rection (1 Cor. 15. 12 sqq.). Only the 
Risen could be invoked (Rom. 10. 9 sqq.), 
and by this very resurrection Christ had the 
ability to mediate for us the righteousness 
of God (Rom. 4. 25, comp. 2. Cor. 5. 21). 
Because the Risen One interceded for us, we 
become assured of the grace of God (Rom. 
8. 34). The meaning of this connection be- 
tween Christ's resurrection and Messiahship 
is certainly not that the miracle in itself 



26 Our Lord 

could establish belief in the "Lord." The 
Old Testament also told of resuscitations 
from death (i Kings 17. 22; 2 Kings 4. 
35) : but no one ever thought of it that the 
prophets who performed the miracle, or 
those who were raised were lords or gods. 
The resurrection was rather to be under- 
stood in a greater connection. For the oldest 
Christendom the thought would certainly 
have been inconceivable that a man who re- 
mained in death should be the Messiah. On 
this account confidence died with Jesus's 
death (Luke 24. 21) and it could only again 
rise with his resurrection. An idealism 
which believed in the victory of one who 
had been actually overthrown, was unat- 
tainable for the apostles. Whoever should 
be the Messiah he had to prove his lordly 
position over a hostile world and over death 
(see also Mark 15. 22). Could one trust in 
him, as during his earthly life in the miracles, 
which he did, a tangible basis had to exist 
for the declaration (Luke 7. 16) : "God hath 
visited his people." But isolated miracles 
did not offer this basis. They might be the 
works of a false prophet or Messiah (Mark 
13. 22, see Deut. 13. 1 sqq.). On this ac- 



Our Lord 27 

count Jesus wrought miracles not to awaken 
but to strengthen belief (Mark 6. 5; 8. 11 
sq.). They served as proof that belief in 
the living God and the "Lord" ordained by 
him, was not fancy but reality. But faith 
in itself had deeper roots. The resurrection 
of Jesus as a miracle on an individual from 
which some inferences should be drawn did 
not come into consideration, but rather his 
establishment in the position itself of Lord. 
One wished to have present the living per- 
son of the Messiah to which he clung by an 
invoking profession. Thus the resurrection 
from death became a pledge that God's 
Kingdom and King must conquer, and that 
the Lord used the designs of men for accom- 
plishing his counsel (Acts 4. 26 sq.). The 
Jesus, whose life one knew, and on whom to 
believe as the Messiah one was consequently 
disposed, appeared now as the authentic 
Messiah, for he was the living God, all that 
God could be to the heart of the believer. 

With these lines of thought an obvious 
objection is settled. That the apostles be- 
lieved in Jesus as the Lord because of his 
resurrection, is not a sufficient reason for us, 
for we who were born later have no imme- 



28 Our Lord 

diate certainty of the event that took place ; 
and if the thought arises that the certainty 
of the apostles might after all have been an 
illusion, we have no means of direct convic- 
tion. How, then, can we establish belief in 
the Lord on a fact doubtful at least to 
modern feeling, which itself already re- 
quired faith or needed proof? In the last 
analysis primitive Christian believers who 
did not belong to the closest circle of the 
witnesses chosen before (Acts 10. 41 sq.) 
occupied in this respect the same position as 
ourselves. That one was then more inclined 
to believe in miracles than today can make no 
fundamental difference in a matter which 
depends not upon disposition and probability, 
but upon an absolute certainty. In the face 
of their first hearers the apostles themselves 
had to consider already that an isolated ref- 
erence to the resurrection of their Master 
would not have been accepted ; for this rea- 
son they did not make it, but referred to the 
facts of experience for which the exaltation 
of their Master served as support and expla- 
nation. By this method the essential per- 
sonal ground of faith was uncovered. To 
be sure the immediate facts of experience 



Our Lord 29 

from which the apostolic testimony started 
had an external character, and for this 
reason are as inaccessible to us as the resur- 
rection itself. Wonderful workings of the 
Spirit were felt or healings of the sick were 
performed. This the apostles explained as 
the works of the exalted Lord (Acts 2. 33 ; 
3. 15; 4. 10). Where such did not occur 
faith had to rely on inner experiences which 
are also accessible to us. The Ethiopian 
treasurer believed in the Lord Jesus after 
Philip had shown unto him in his death and 
resurrection the fulfillment of Isaiah 53. 
(Acts 8. 32 sqq.) : "He was led as a sheep 
to the slaughter. . > . In his humilia- 
tion his judgment was taken away." As 
certain as the outward striking agreement 
of prophecy and fulfillment was of import- 
ance there, just as certain the return to a 
decisive personal experience opens at the 
same time. He who fulfills the prophecy 
satisfied also the need of the God-seeking 
human heart whose expression was prophecy. 
The law and the prophets testified of Jesus, 
for he, the judge of all men, is the moral 
standard from which no conscience can with- 
draw — and at the same time he offered the 



30 Our Lord 

forgiveness which every conscience needed 
(Acts 10. 42). 

These are the decisive marks by which one 
perceived Christ as the representative of 
God. The holy love of God for which we 
thirst has become a surety in him. Whether 
one made his experience with Christ, 
whether he acknowledged him as his Saviour 
according to the impression which went 
forth from him, this decided finally whether 
he called him in truth his Lord; for the 
primitive apostolic preaching could not have 
meant that the formal pronunciation of a 
name should effect acquittal in the last judg- 
ment. At all times one considered what 
Paul revealed more clearly (Rom. 10. 10) : 
"with the heart man believeth, with the 
mouth confession is made." Though the 
end of this confession was future deliver- 
ance, yet a necessary and clear connection 
existed between future and present. Who- 
ever called upon the Lord received the Spirit 
as pledge of belonging to him and his church 
which was to be saved (Acts 2. 38; 10. 47). 
This pledge made the exaltation of Christ, 
to which the apostles bore witness appear 
credible as being based on experience; and 



Our Lord 31 

with Christ as the victor one felt himself 
safe in the present and in the future. This 
was at all times the innermost kernel of 
spirit-possession, though wondrous, and, for 
us unintelligible, covers may surround it. 
These husks were certainly not the essence : 
but we understand them as the testimonies 
of a purely supernatural event. Whoever 
felt the corresponding inner experience with 
Christ, believed in the testimony of his res- 
urrection and exaltation. It harmonized 
with the certainty that this Christ was in 
truth the Lord, and without this testimony 
the full certainty could not be obtained — for 
in the Lord Christ one wished to ascertain 
not a God of thought, but the real God and 
Lord of the world. 

Testimony of the historical reality of 
Christ as the Lord and experience of that 
which he could do as Saviour and Lord, 
served to establish the conviction: "Jesus, 
the Christ, is the Lord." This conviction 
can in no other way be established today. 
On the whole one will be disposed to think 
so much of Christ as he experiences of him 
in virtue of personal need. The Belief of 
Authority in uncritical times may drag along 



32 Our Lord 

many a surplus, yet that can only be con- 
sidered as truly established which has been 
appropriated in the described manner. It 
can therefore only promote the knowledge 
of Christ when modern theology binds itself 
to no sanctified tradition, but sifts tradition 
thoroughly. Belief that one can be master 
of this matter by pure historical inquiry is 
a delusion. Certainly one is to institute the 
most impartial inquiry in order to get at the 
reality as near as possible: for we wish to 
have Christ as he really is and no ideal, 
imaginary figure can help us. But to ascer- 
tain this reality purely historical means are 
insufficient. Personal estimate of Christ has 
a weighty word to say. This lies in the mat- 
ter itself. Religious realities open not to 
exact science, but the word often applies 
(Matt. ii. 25): "I thank thee, O Father, 
because thou hast hid these things from the 
wise and prudent, and hast revealed them 
unto babes." The Spirit which proceeded 
from Christ and apprehended the heart 
which is not opposed to any honest examina- 
tion, but which can also not be substituted 
for by any science, always rendered the 
decision. In asking for the reason of our 



Our Lord 33 

belief in the Lord, we shall never be able to 
eliminate personal religious experience 
which we have made or did not make in him. 
A purely historical judgment is also ex- 
cluded by the condition of the documents. 
It cannot be denied that the details of the 
life of Jesus were cleared through a more 
accurate insight into the documentary rela- 
tions of the first three Gospels in whose esti- 
mate, in spite of some important objections 
of recent times, the overwhelming majority 
of investigators of all tendencies agree. The 
conclusive judgment as a whole, however, 
will simply stop before the fact that the older 
as well as later documentary strata described 
only a Jesus with a wholly incommensurable 
consciousness — and that no real historical 
instance suggested the supposition of an in- 
vention of the picture as a whole. There 
exists also no "oldest source" which offered 
a development of Jesus seen at a glance, 
at whose beginning stood a simple prophet ; 
at whose end the Lord-consciousness. 
Whether we put a superhuman word from 
the oldest sources into this or that period of 
the life of Jesus, or refuse it entirely; 
whether we gladly receive from the later 



34 Our Lord 

documentary strata, especially from Luke, 
portions of a simple, prophetic preaching or 
accounts of a miraculous character, or reject 
them as mythical, an exact and controllable 
historical observation decides in the rarest 
cases, but almost always a subjective opinion. 
By this we neither wish to prohibit nor dis- 
parage historical inquiry, but we wish to 
remind that consciously or unconsciously ad- 
duced suppositions essentially influence the 
result. It would cross to a theology believ- 
ing in the "Lord," but must omit reference 
to the decisive instance of personal expe- 
rience — whereas others may impress the 
world with nominally pure historical science. 
The forceful question which we must put 
before all other historical examination is 
today again fundamentally the same as that 
which is set against Rationalism. Is there a 
revelation of God in history which cannot be 
surpassed, on which we can rest for all 
times — or, is there only a perpetual develop- 
ment even in the history of religion before 
whose heights we may stop with awe-in- 
spiring wonder, but which, however, do not 
stand in a unique and indissoluble relation to 
the God of the world to come? Applied to 



Our Lord 35 

Jesus, this question reads : Is he a prophet 
of God, the most preeminent, and peerlessly- 
surpassing all others — or is the self-realiza- 
tion and presentation of God in history in 
short "The Lord"? Personally expressed: 
have we belief about Jesus — or belief in 
Jesus? The most modern theology with 
greatest clearness decides in favor of the first 
alternative. For it Jesus is certainly not the 
civil, meek and kind teacher in whose reve- 
lations of God and virtue the older rational- 
ism reflected itself, for the intervening cen- 
tury taught us enthusiasm for storm and 
stress, originality and energy, genial strug- 
gling and rushing. The deed of powerful 
personality displaced the word of poets and 
thinkers. Thus Jesus also from a popular 
philosopher became a hero. This picture is 
richer than the old rationalistic drawing; 
it absorbs traits of reality which once 
obliterated the difference against the real 
Messiah-figure of the first Gospels. But 
it goes beyond the limit in that it moves 
us to thoughts or often only to opinions 
about God, and draws our imagination 
full of phantasies into the atmosphere in 
which it itself stands. In short: what 



36 Our Lord 

every commanding personality performs 
in any department of the higher mental 
life, Jesus accomplished in the realm of 
religion, whereby a guarantee for his lasting 
and exclusive dominion is so little to be 
given as for this, that no creative mind of 
the future can show entirely new paths to 
our aesthetic feeling by surprising "revela- 
tions." But there is no doubt that the real 
Jesus made quite different claims. If he 
claimed to be the Messiah, no recollection of 
contemporaneous forms covers up the fact 
that he thereby placed himself at the im- 
movable center and at the same time at the 
end of history. And the question simply 
reads: Truth or illusion? For an illusion 
remains what it is, though it seems charm- 
ing and may be developed as an almost 
necessary expression of self-consciousness. 

He whose religious need is satisfied with 
a Jesus who imagined himself to be the 
Messiah, but really was only a most pow- 
erful religious genius, may arrange the 
sources according to his points of view — 
which from the start forbid him to allow 
the full height of the apostolic experience of 
"the Lord." But if our religious need and 



Our Lord 37 

that of numberless Christians in all centuries 
coincides with that which the apostles testi- 
fied of their Lord, we shall have at least 
the scientific right equally to approach the 
sources from this point of view, and to ask 
whether we have not therein the key to an 
impartial and unvexed understanding of the 
"immensely high estimate of one's own self" 
in Jesus. 

All the apostles agreed in this that they 
had in Jesus the Mediator of their new and 
sure relation to God, and that access to the 
Father is entirely connected with his person. 
They received from him neither new ethics 
nor unheard of communications of God's 
nature, but were convinced that he realized 
and at best deepened what long ago was 
deposited in the Old Testament. The ex- 
istence of his person as the enduring 
mediator was the new revelation. Nothing 
came from Christ, but Christ himself worked 
in a helpful and redeeming manner. In him 
the gracious God met sinful humanity. The 
self-surrendering union with him and the 
communion of his Spirit gave inward free- 
dom from guilt and the burden of sin, divine 
sonship and pledge of eternal life. It trans- 



38 Our Lord 

lated the believer into the heavenly world 
and God's eternal Kingdom (for instance, 
Rom. 1. 16 sq. ; 5. 11; 8. 1 sqq., 15 sq; 1 
Cor. 1. 4 sqq.; 2 Cor. 5. 17, 21; Gal. 1. 4; 
3. 2, 13; Eph. 1. 3; 2. 6; 1 Pet. 1. 18 sq.; 
2. 5; 1 John 3. 1 sqq.; Rev. 5. 10; John 
1. 12) — and all this not merely in the sense 
that Christ's historical personality had pro- 
duced in us such dispositions, but that on 
principle one has and can have in him and 
through him these possessions: John 1. 18: 
■'And of his fullness have all we received, 
and grace for grace." And Acts 4. 12: 
"Neither is there salvation in any other : for 
there is none other name under heaven given 
among men, whereby we must be saved." 
This exclusiveness was a very essential char- 
acteristic of the apostolic belief in the Lord. 
Should one admit that all the blissful and 
elevating feelings and moral impulses which 
Christendom enjoys are results of the life 
and work of Jesus, but should add that all 
this is a purely historical product and may 
at present also be obtained without the cor- 
responding estimate of Christ and without 
personal union with him, or that one has to 
reckon with developments leading beyond 



Our Lord 39 

us, such a view would take the heart out of 
belief in the "Lord," for as soon as Christ 
loses his uniqueness and matchless character, 
he is no more the Christ. 1 

It is certain that there exists no historical 
deduction which could scientifically com- 
mand this apostolic belief in the Lord ; here 
believing experience is everything". But the 
question obtrudes itself whether Jesus 
thought and asserted of himself what this 
belief attributed to him. If we had to 
answer it in the negative no imagination ever 
so blessed could make amends for the loss of 
the truth. Better no belief than a menda- 
cious one ! If the question is to be affirmed 
it would, indeed, not prove what no inquiry 
can demonstrate that Jesus was really the 
"Lord and Messiah," as he, together with 
his disciples, considered himself — but with 
a good and honest conscience we could say 
that our belief is not opposed by the historical 
result of the examination. But whoever 
should feel that this considerate judgment 
was too tame, he might strengthen the cer- 
tainty of his belief by the further observation 
that a picture of Jesus which came nearer to 



1 Certainly not the Christ of the New Testament.— Editor. 



40 Our Lord 

the human standard could only be prepared 
from our sources by forced means. 

To obtain an impartial result we leave the 
Gospel of John entirely out of the question — 
not because we consider it as untrust- 
worthy, but because the "moderns" would 
not follow us on that ground. We only use 
the first three Gospels, and of these especially 
Mark ; also the sayings grouped together by 
Matthew. Here one would expect to find, 
proportionally, firmest historical ground. 
From this limited material it can already be 
proved that Jesus claimed for himself ex- 
actly that which the apostles affirmed him 
to be, the "Lord." 

It is certain, unconditionally so, that Jesus 
knew himself to be the Messiah. A few 
scholars have controverted this. If they 
were right, we would have to surrender 
every historical statement: we would have 
an equation with nothing but unknown 
quantities, and from our sources even the 
narrowest and most unsteady bridge would 
no more lead to any historical fact. The 
oldest portions of the Gospels conceived 
Jesus as the Messiah and introduced him as 
such, therefore to take away this presuppo- 



Our Lord 41 

sition is to dissolve the entire Jesus-picture 
into intangible mist. Had Jesus not meant 
to be the Messiah the cause of his condemna- 
tion would have remained in perfect ob- 
scurity. It would also be inconceivable how 
his disciples could attribute to him a title of 
which the Jews in the face of the cross, and 
the Greeks in general, could have no under- 
standing. It belonged to the safest facts that 
Jesus accepted from the mouth of Peter the 
confession (Mark 8. 29) : "Thou art the 
Christ/' Also (Mark 11. 1 sqq. ; 14. 61 
sq.) that he entered into Jerusalem as the 
Messianic King of peace ; and to the question 
of the high priest, whether he was the 
Christ, the Son of the Blessed, gave the 
answer : "I am." Historically, also, nothing 
can be opposed to the fact that Jesus openly 
professed before Pilate to be King of the 
Jews and that the governor had this title 
written over the cross (Mark 15. 2, 26). 
To be sure, it becomes evident that Jesus did 
not boastingly and provokingly announce 
his Messiahship, but meant to have it care- 
fully kept secret till toward the close of 
his ministry. 

But there are more plausible reasons for 



42 Our Lord 

this than those which modern theologians 
offer, namely : that he himself did not quite 
enjoy his Messianic title! Where is there 
even the shadow of a proof for this, even 
when he inquired after the public feeling 
concerning his person, and finally asked his 
disciples: "But whom say ye that I am?" 
What else could Jesus have claimed to be 
than the Messiah when he elevated himself 
as a matter of course above all kings (Mark 
12. 36; Matt. 12. 42), and prophets, includ- 
ing John the Baptist (Matt. 11. 11; 5. 11 
sq. ; 17. 10 sq.), and saw fulfilled in his per- 
son and revealed unto the disciples what the 
prophets desired to see (Matt. 13. 17, see 
5. 17) ? It never occurred to Jesus that he 
should be ranked with the prophets. Over 
against servants he knew himself as the Son 
(Mark 12. 6). With what sovereign 
authority does he place beside the word of 
the law his (Matt. 5. 22-28, etc.) : "But 
I say unto you." A prophet would have said 
(for instance, Amos 1. 3, 6) : "Thus saith 
the Lord." One might dispute the historicity 
of some of these sayings, but it is an arbi- 
trary act to do away with this evidence of a 
super-prophetic consciousness in Jesus. 



Our Lord 43 

Should Jesus, indeed, have made the in- 
quiry, "Whom say ye that I am ?" only under 
the inevitable stress of ideas which sur- 
rounded him and constrained his thinking, 
when he adopted the Messianic title, which 
would not have been a really suitable ex- 
pression of his consciousness ? In that case 
we should find some trace of uncertainty in 
the use of the title and in the assertion of 
the claims connected therewith ; whereas, on 
the contrary, we everywhere meet with 
nothing but royal certainty and clearness. 
Jesus never struggled and doubted whether 
he were really the Messiah, but only whether 
it were necessary that he, as Son of God, 
should suffer (Matt. 14. 36). What mostly 
grieved him after Peter's confession, accord- 
ing to the present accounts, was not the inner 
conflict between the claims to Messiahship 
which he recently intended and the almost 
necessary apprehension of it as a political 
title, but the effort of Peter to divert him 
from the path of suffering (Mark 8. 32 sq.). 
In reality the Messianic title expressed exact- 
ly that which Jesus claimed as his peculiar 
work over against the mere prophets. He not 
only meant to preach but to bring in the 



44 Our Lord 

Kingdom of God. On the attitude to his 
person depended whether it should come in 
or not. How did the Lord everywhere put 
himself into the foreground! Thus "For 
my sake," he often said to the disciples, ye 
are persecuted, or ye deny yourselves — and 
obtain thereby the life or the Kingdom of 
heaven (Matt. 5. 11; Mark 8. 35; 10. 29). 
"He that loveth father or mother more than 
me is not worthy of me/' said Jesus (Matt. 
10. 37) as something very self-evident. 
Such a word savors not of a cold fanaticism, 
as it has been usually employed against the 
natural duties of love in favor of the 
monastic "choice of a profession." We 
should remember that the Gospel of John 
presents evidence of Jesus' filial love (John 
19. 26 sq.) which brings the Lord humanly 
nearer to us. In the first Gospels, which are 
to be decisive for the picture of Jesus, occur 
still more definite sayings which push the 
human relationship behind the relation to 
the Kingdom of God and its King (Matt. 
8. 22 ; 12. 48 sq.). 

Whoever could speak thus and claim the 
hearts of his followers wholly for himself 
must either have been eccentric or that he 



Our Lord 45 

dared to suppose that it was becoming 
in him as a man to anticipate feelings 
like those in Psa. 73. 25, "Whom have I in 
heaven but thee? And there is none upon 
earth, that I desire beside thee." What 
claim is suggested also in the word (Matt. 
12. 30) : "He that is not with me is against 
me !" And even the milder inversion (Mark 
9. 40) : "for he that is not against us is on 
our part," supposes that Jesus stood with 
his disciples at the center of God's work. 

The self-consciousness of that Jesus 
whom the oldest sources describe, was Mes- 
sianic through and through, and nothing in- 
dicates that the acceptance of the Messianic 
title meant a half-reluctant accommodation. 
This result nothing can change, even though 
one or the other of the quoted words is de- 
nied to Jesus. The fact is firmly established. 
That Jesus did not at once speak plainly is 
essentially explained from this that his in- 
tention was not to enforce faith outwardly, 
but to have it proceed from one's innermost 
experience. He could not do otherwise if 
he had in view not the political character 
but the religious substance of the Messianic 
thought. And what is this religious sub- 



46 Our Lord 

stance? This question most modern in- 
quirers put into the background; but when 
Jesus eliminated the political, national claims 
and yet wished to be the Messiah, the main 
question would be what content remained for 
his Messianic picture. It is pure embarrass- 
ment when one evades the closer inquiry by 
stating that the Messianic title is in the end 
unimportant, what Jesus was he was aside 
from this notion, etc. Jesus himself could 
never have effectuated separation between his 
general religious consciousness and his Mes- 
sianic consciousness. He was no tragic-hero 
who sank through the conflict of his real and 
true nature and assumed a Messianic dis- 
guise. He who thus describes him follows not 
the sources, but the necessity to create human 
analogies for this matchless figure. The 
sources rather agreed with the apostolic 
estimate of the matchless "Lord and Mes- 
siah." Between that which the Jesus of our 
sources meant to bring to the world and the 
prophetical picture of the Messianic time of 
salvation which remains after deducing the 
political aspirations of the times there exists 
a remarkable agreement. Three traits es- 
sentially fill up the picture. The Messianic 



Our Lord 47 

time of salvation would bring forgiveness of 
sins and thereby righteousness and purity 
which is painfully lacking in the present 
(Isa. 2. 18; 4. 4; 33- 2 4; 44. 22; Jer. 31. 34; 
50. 20; Zech. 13. 1). On this was founded 
the second part : that the people should enjoy 
the presence of God and find a refuge with 
him (Isa. 4. 4 sqq. ; 25. 4 sqq., etc.), would 
be ruled in righteousness and peace by a 
King whom God would raise up (Isa. 9. 6; 
11. 2; Jer. 23. 5 sq.; Ezek. 34. 11, 23; 
37. 24). Finally the prophetic glance ex- 
tended over all nations and the thought of a 
world-mission and a world- judgment arose 
(Isa. 2. 2 sq. ; Dan. 7. 14 sqq.). 

The inquiry how far these deepest charac- 
teristics of prophetic hope were alive among 
the contemporaries of Jesus or were over- 
grown by politico-fanciful imaginations, may 
here be left aside. That one disclosed the 
thought world of later Judaism, and thus 
made clearer the nearest background against 
the work of Jesus leans, and from which it 
stood out, was certainly useful in more than 
one direction : but the roots of the self-con- 
sciousness of Jesus do not lie here, but in 
Old Testament prophecy, with whose Mes- 



48 Our Lord 

sianic traits his consciousness coincided, 
those traits which he found in himself and 
by which he knew that he had to bring his 
Messiahship to his people and the world by- 
virtue of personal preparation. The prin- 
cipal content of his Messianic consciousness 
was just this that personally and alone he 
mediated to humanity the grace and pres- 
ence of God which humanity had expected 
from remote antiquity. Whoever affirms 
this claim of Jesus by virtue of his own 
experience, reads the prophets in whom 
God's Messiah saw himself foretold with 
a clear view of the fundamental facts, need 
not shut the eye to the temporal limitation 
and human drapery — but what God who 
joined together prophecy and fulfillment and 
finally gave the world its "Lord" meant in 
the deepest ground is that which ripened in 
Jesus, whereas the residue as something 
extraneous shall fall to the ground. 

The basis for intercourse with God was 
the forgiveness of sins. Did Jesus connect 
this with his person or did he preach the 
pardoning love of God simply as an authori- 
tative truth ? This is, in the last place, the 
chief question which decided everything. It 



Our Lord 49 

repeats in a concrete form what we already 
suggested as an alternative rationalism, that 
is, belief in general ideas which can obtain 
no exclusive relation to a certain point of 
history, or an historical self-offering of the 
living God, who really acted toward hu- 
manity in chastisement and grace. Belief 
in the "Lord" has a real sense only under 
the supposition that one sees in Jesus not 
only the announcer but the only authorized 
dispenser of divine forgiveness. Did he 
mean to be this ? 

The ease with which modern delineations 
of the person of Jesus pass over this main 
question is surprising. The Gospel of Mark 
2. 1 sqq. presents an exceedingly clear ac- 
count of the healing of the sick of the palsy, 
which no intelligent inquirer would put aside 
as unhistorical. Ere Jesus healed the sick 
he saith unto him: "Thy sins be forgiven 
thee." These words already read incom- 
parably more authoritative than the pro- 
phetical announcement of Nathan to David 
(2 Sam. 12. 13) : "The Lord also hath put 
away thy sin." Here in place of referring 
to God the Lord, we have the most personal 
exercise of lordly right. On this unmistak- 



50 Our Lord 

able impression is based the criticism of the 
scribes: "This man blasphemeth." Indeed 
there was no knowing how the greatest 
prophet even could have granted forgiveness 
of sins in this fashion, for by this he had en- 
croached upon God's prerogative (Exod. 34. 
7; Isa. 43. 25), whom sin had offended and 
who alone could pardon (see Psa. 51. 4). 
To the Messiah one might, perhaps, have 
conceded such course of action — but one 
would then have seen in him, even without 
further reflection on his metaphysical 
quality, God's representative on earth. Into 
these thoughts Jesus completely entered by 
stating: "The Son of Man hath power on 
earth to forgive sins," and in confirmation 
of the seemingly easy spoken word, he per- 
formed the seemingly more difficult miracle. 
It has been asserted that the designation, 
"Son of man," everywhere, where it was 
otherwise taken as a unique title in the 
mouth of Jesus, or here at least, was only a 
paraphrase of the expression "man" (see 
perhaps Psa. 8. 5). 1 Readily as one might 

1 For a thorough study of this particular subject see 
Dalman's Words of Jesus. T. & T. Clark. Also a French 
work, La Mission Historique de Je*sus, by Henri Monnier, 
pp. 3-99, where the views of recent critics are considered. 
— Editor. 



Our Lord 51 

treat of it in some other passages, this mean- 
ing is perfectly excluded here : it would de- 
stroy the nerve of the thought. Could Jesus 
have meant to say that there was no question 
of blasphemy, because every man could for- 
give sins, or because there were at least men 
on earth who could indulge in such things ? 
This is absolutely precluded for a Jewish 
consciousness — and Jesus could not have re- 
futed the objection of the astonished scribes. 
He might rather legitimatize his personal 
authority by a miracle as it was at his dis- 
posal. Would one also father the thought 
upon him that "the man" had power to do 
such miracles ? If according to the account 
of Matthew (9. 8) the people glorified God, 
"which had given such power unto men," 
humanity in general had this power only 
through the Son of man, who obtained it for 
himself and demonstrated it. Thus our his- 
tory serves for the incontestable proof that 
Jesus saw his, the Son of man's, Messianic 
dignity inseparably connected with the power 
to forgive sins. To the malefactor he prom- 
ised (Luke 23. 43) : "Today shalt thou be 
with me in paradise." Also when the great 
sinner received the consolation of forgiveness 



52 Our Lord 

(Luke 7. 47), the question was not merely 
of a personally applied sermon but of real 
performance. The woman who so touch- 
ingly expressed her grateful love, expected 
to get something from Jesus himself ; yea, ac- 
cording to the Lord's statement she already 
had received it ere he pronounced the word 
of pardon, for forgiveness is not attached to 
formula and moment — but to Christ's per- 
son, toward which sinners pressed near (see 
also Luke 19. 2 sqq.). When he received 
sinners and ate with them (Mark 2. 16; 
Luke 15. 1 sq.), he acted not merely as the 
kind minister but as God's agent. For a 
Jewish consciousness this distribution of 
divine grace was something unheard of — not 
every one could have bestowed it, only he 
whom all the prophets expected. That the 
Gospel was preached to the poor also be- 
longed to the distinguishing marks of him 
who was to come (Matt. 11. 5; see Isa. 
61. 1). 

Over against this reference is made to the 
preaching of Jesus in parables of the pardon- 
ing love of God. The only condition for 
God's forgiveness is repentance and conver- 
sion of the sinner. When the father re- 



Our Lord 53 

ceived again the son who returned from a 
far country and sin, or, when the king at 
his mere request and promise forgave the 
debt to the unfaithful servant who for years 
had not delivered up the revenues of his 
domain, there was no question, we are told, 
of a special mediator. In like manner the 
publican in the temple experienced the divine 
absolution simply in answer to his praying 
confession (Matt. 18. 23 sq. ; Luke 15. 11 
sqq. ; 18. 9 sqq.). In general Jesus simply 
directed his disciples to forgive that they 
also might be forgiven (Matt. 6. 14 sq. ; 
Mark 11. 25 sq.). All these facts are un- 
questionable. And Jesus could hardly speak 
otherwise if he himself meant to bring sin- 
ners to God. Of a mediatorship which 
would connect us with an earthly person or 
of any troublesome apparatus, but which 
hides God the Father himself, we find no 
trace with Jesus. Here is true freedom of 
intercourse with God, no bondage of men. 
But does this exclude a mediatorship, such 
as Jesus really claimed for himself ? Should 
a truly historical procedure not rather allow 
both, that Jesus directs the sinners imme- 
diately to God rather than bind them to him- 



54 Our Lord 

self — should not a truly historical method 
follow the understanding of this remarkable 
double instead of cutting the knot by ex- 
plaining away a whole number of statements 
which are neither worse attested nor are 
shorter than the others ? What was finally 
more incredible — that Jesus meant to be the 
Messiah, and indeed attributed to himself the 
divine and Messianic privilege of the for- 
giveness of sins, or that the believing con- 
gregation imputed to him something for 
which his actual speaking and acts offered 
no support ? To suppose that Jesus regarded 
himself as the Messiah and then to deny that 
he connected forgiveness of sins with his 
person, is, historically considered, an im- 
perfection beyond which one must go either 
in the one direction or the other. With the 
common preaching of the pardoning love of 
God, one must not forget that it was Jesus 
who thus preached. In his addresses nothing 
indicated that he only meant to be the be- 
ginner of such preaching which everyone 
could receive without further connection 
with his person. To be sure, one might for- 
get for a moment that Jesus is the mediator ; 
and if a sinner, in the face of the parables 



Our Lord 55 

(Luke 15) would rely on his gracious God 
without thinking of Jesus, forgiveness would 
certainly not be ineffectual, for forgiveness 
adheres not to a dogmatic formula or to a 
name used according to a pattern. Real and 
fundamental connection with the person of 
Jesus is on this account surely not severed : 
for outside of the congregation gathered 
around Christ such an intercourse with God 
is nowhere to be found. Not only of Jesus' 
authoritative interpretation of the law, but 
also of his preaching of grace it will hold 
good (Matt. 7. 29; Mark 1. 22): "He 
taught them as one that had authority." 
This is the same word as in the story of the 
man that had the palsy: "the Son of man 
hath power on earth to forgive sins." Jesus 
did not speak like a scribe in virtue of rab- 
binical tradition, nor like a philosopher in 
virtue of inquiring reflection, but in his own, 
not only prophetic, but Messianic power, 
whose emanation was his personal forgive- 
ness as his preaching of forgiveness. That 
both go side by side is just as compatible as 
the prayers for forgiveness which are found 
in the Old Testament beside the regulated 
means of atonement, in which he who prays 



56 Our Lord 

did not think of the sacrificial institutions, 
whose certain meaning outside of this his- 
torical circle were surely inconceivable. 

This also is correct that Jesus, without 
considering his person, opened the Kingdom 
of heaven to all who did the will of God. 
True, he often spoke in general terms that 
obedience to the moral order and the com- 
mandment of love brought man nearer to 
God; also, this or that pointed statement 
which was usually brought into connection 
with Jesus' special dignity, was indeed con- 
ceivable in the mouth of every morally- 
striving man. When his relatives considered 
him as being beside himself and sent unto 
him, calling him from the multitude that sat 
about him, he declared himself as being sep- 
arated from them and said (Mark 3. 21 ; 31 
sqq.) : "Whosoever shall do the will of God, 
the same is my brother, and my sister, and 
mother." Thus every one could speak who 
put Spirit-communion over that of blood- 
relationship. But when this word was trans- 
mitted to us from the lips of a man who, 
in the communion of those who did the 
will of God, intended to be not a simple mem- 
ber, but the head, it would certainly be of 



Our Lord 57 

special value to be his brother or sister. He 
who wishes to become a child of God, must 
have Jesus for a brother. Probably the form 
in Matthew (12. 50) is exactly correct: 
"Whosoever shall do the will of my Father, 
the same is my brother." The meaning is 
the same as in the text (7. 21) : "Not every 
one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall 
enter into the Kingdom of heaven; but he 
that doeth the will of my Father which is in 
heaven." This saying ought to have never 
been employed in proof of the thesis that 
Jesus considered not relation to his person 
but obedience to the will of God as the con- 
dition of entrance into the Kingdom of 
heaven. For this contrast is connected with 
his word, which presupposes relation to 
him as Lord, but would have that relation 
morally shaped. The declaration of Jesus 
says nothing else than the Pauline word 
(Rom. 8. 9) : "If any man have not the 
Spirit of Christ, he is none of his." Who- 
ever puts it aside must put it to the account 
of the evangelist, as if for it a truly historical 
reason did not naturally exist. 

The result of all this is that Jesus intended 
to be accepted as the mediator of the King- 



58 Our Lord 

dom of God for humanity ; and how could he 
be such according to his own views and his 
people's established suppositions, unless he 
granted forgiveness of sins ? 

But we shall have to abandon this asser- 
tion if only a trace of the consciousness of 
sin could be proved in Jesus. But according 
to human analogies it is certainly the most 
inexplicable fact of his life that considering 
the tenderest moral sensitiveness, and the 
most penetrating, the most inconsiderate 
judgment on the one hand and the lack of 
every boasting attitude on the other, we 
never meet with a confession of personal 
guilt, or even with a gentle whisper which 
in the least suggested a guilty conscience. 
This man whom we could not charge with 
pride when he testified of his humility (Matt. 
ii. 29; see 21. 4 sq.), knew no moral ideal 
among men above himself. Without any 
assuming attitude he saw with simple self- 
evidence all others far below his eminence. 
At the same time the Gospels nowhere cause 
any offensive sensation about Jesus' sinless- 
ness : it is the supposition of the greater fact 
that he brought forgiveness which needed no 
explanation. That he himself prayed the 



Our Lord 59 

Lord's Prayer with the fifth petition is a 
groundless assertion. That the Gospels were 
right when they gave this prayer as a model 
recommended to the disciples (Matt. 6. 9; 
Luke 11. 1 sq.) the address already indi- 
cated : in no other passage did Jesus ever say 
"Our Father," even where it had suggested 
itself for every other man. He either said 
(Matt. 7. 21; 10. 32 sq.; 11. 2j\ 12. 50, 
etc.) : "My Father," or (Matt. 5. 16, 45, 48; 
Mark 11. 25 sq., etc.): "Your Father." 
Thus he included himself, indeed, with his 
disciples in the relation to God, but he never 
broke through the distinctive insuperable 
barrier. Will any one dare to assert that 
our Gospels revised the words of Jesus 
where he actually said "Our Father"? 
That the faith of the congregation supplied 
sublime words might seem credible, but that 
one should have effaced a phrase in which 
none easily perceived how it could injure the 
unique dignity of Jesus, would be incredible 
craftiness. The proper distinction between 
"Our Father" and "My Father" is a new 
proof that men could only call upon God as 
their Father through the mediation of that 
Jesus whose Son he was in a unique manner. 



60 Our Lord 

A real consideration might arise from the 
fact that Jesus received John's baptism of re- 
pentance (Mark i. 4, 9 sqq.). Should one 
who thus acted not betray, at least, a 
general need for forgiveness? But accord- 
ing to the short statement of Mark the result 
was already that Jesus heard the inner en- 
couragement of his Father: "Thou art my 
beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased/' 
Not a syllable indicated that this good 
pleasure rested on received forgiveness; on 
the contrary, the word made clear that 
Jesus came up out of the water with an 
entirely different consciousness than did the 
others. Every one else would have rejoiced 
that God's pardon was sealed to him. Jesus 
alone received as the reward of his obedience 
the assurance that the Father's good pleasure 
rested on him at all times. What for others 
was a baptism of repentance became in him 
the means for their apprehending his Mes- 
sianic calling. It is positively true that 
Jesus came to baptism not with a feeling of 
guilt but (Matt. 3. 15) to "fulfill all 
righteousness." 

There remains only one word of Jesus 
which may be cited as proof of a conscious- 



Our Lord 6i 

ness not exactly of sin but of imperfection 
(Mark 10. 18) : "Why callest thou me good? 
There is none good but one, that is, God." 
There is no doubt that in the mouth of any 
other man this statement would indicate a 
confession of guilt. But could Jesus really 
have meant that which everywhere else he 
showed himself very distant from? Could 
he have meant that he was not good when 
he intended to bind the rich young man to 
his person and declared that he would forfeit 
the Kingdom of heaven unless he were 
united with him? His word was only new 
proof that he did not intend to bring any- 
thing really new in moral instruction, but 
that he meant to fulfill in his person that 
which every man who was familiar with the 
law and was morally striving after must feel 
as his need. The rich young man must not 
think that any good rabbi could reveal new 
laws by which eternal life could surely be 
obtained. He was to adhere to the long 
known commandments of the one good God, 
and when he had learnt to understand their 
deepest meaning, that God demanded the 
whole heart, let him then come to Jesus to 
receive from him what he could not himself 



62 Our Lord 

obtain. Instead of presenting the Lord in 
his position as mediator, the story of the 
rich young man rather teaches us what his 
ordinary preaching of the law really meant. 
It was pedagogic — certainly not in the sense 
that it depended not on serious obedience, 
but only on confession of sin; but certainly 
so that it was to lead to him who had for- 
giveness and the healing presence of God. 
Who does not hear that the demand of a 
righteousness which was to exceed that of 
the Pharisees (Matt. 5. 20 sqq.) was to 
make out of the "righteous" sinners and 
poor in spirit? (Matt. 9. 13; 5. 3.) Thus 
Jesus fulfilled the law by preaching it in its 
entire depth, and the prophets by offering 
himself as the one whom they promised 
(Matt. 5. 17). 

The self-testimony of Jesus is without a 
flaw if one accepts as the kernel of his claim 
that as the Messiah of God he had above all 
the power to forgive sins. But if we take 
this soul out of the Gospel and put together 
a few sayings which without regard to the 
connection may also be understood of any 
common human consciousness, then the 
whole becomes a heap of ruins from whose 



Our Lord 63 

crumbs one may erect with the most arbi- 
trary selection a new building of a different 
style. 

It is not worth the trouble to discuss in 
detail further statements of the Lord. That 
at the Last Supper he designated his death 
as a sacrifice for establishing the new 
covenant, blotting out all sins, aside from 
some difference of words, the "oldest 
sources" have stated in a positive manner 
(1 Cor. 11. 23 sqq. ; Mark 14. 22 sqq.). 
That he designated the giving of his life as 
an atonement or ransom for many, the "old- 
est sources" also recorded (Mark 1. 45; see 
Matt. 20. 28). But when one declares over 
against this that Jesus never spoke of a 
necessity of giving satisfaction for sin, one 
cannot rely on some tangible, historico- 
critically established suspicion (as also 
Mark 8. 37), but mainly on a preconceived 
judgment, that one cannot believe that Jesus 
was capable of such words. But it is char- 
acteristic that the last-quoted words compre- 
hensively gave the object of the coming of 
Jesus: "The Son of man came to minister, 
and to give his life a ransom for many." 
We have many such schedule-like statements 



64 Our Lord 

and all aimed at the like point that Jesus 
meant to be the Messiah who should gather 
the people of God by his pardoning grace 
(Matt. 5. 17; Mark 2. 17; Luke 19. 10): 
"I am come to fulfill the law and the proph- 
ets." "I came to call sinners to repentance." 
"The Son of man is come to seek and to 
save that which was lost." We have here a 
uniform building, in which every stone fitly 
joins the other. 

At the same time a surprising and import- 
ant observation presents itself. The decla- 
ration of atonement through the self-offering 
of Jesus leans against Isa. 53. 10 sqq., where 
we read concerning the suffering servant of 
God : "He hath made his soul an offering for 
sin." "He bare the sin of many." Jesus, in 
adopting these terms and referring them to 
himself, gave to understand : I am indeed the 
Son of man who shall exercise judgment and 
power (Dan. 7. 13 ; Mark 3. 26), but before 
this I appeared as the humble servant of God 
who blotted out sin and offers grace. Thus 
Jesus himself supplemented and deepened in 
a manner till then unheard of, the customary 
splendid Messianic-picture by the picture of 
the suffering servant described in the book 



Our Lord 65 

of Isaiah, and ever since the apostolic writ- 
ings remind us of Isaiah 53 (as also Acts 
3. 13; 1 Pet. 2. 22 sqq.). Which is more 
credible, that Jesus found himself in that 
prophecy, or that his followers should have 
put into his mouth a combination to which 
no trace of existing Jewish theology re- 
ferred? He will assume the latter who 
believes Jesus capable of a very strange 
self-deception over his earthly successes and 
over the end of his life. But if Jesus really 
stands as the aim of prophecy he certainly 
had a clear understanding of the way of 
redemption. We thus come back again to 
the personal attitude toward Jesus as the 
decisive point. But even considered purely 
historically, it will not be very obvious that 
a man who often applied to himself the 
prophecies of the servant of God (Isa. 61. 1 
sq.; see Matt. 1 1. 5; Luke 4. 18) should 
also not have found the transition to the 
fifty-third chapter of the Book of Isaiah. 
From an evangelist who interpreted the 
word "himself took our infirmities" in a 
quite different sense (Matt. 8. 17; see Isa. 
53. 4), it were at any rate hardly to be 
expected that without the precedent of Jesus 



66 Our Lord 

himself he should have connected the suffer- 
ing and death of the Master with this 
prophecy. But if Jesus knew himself as the 
suffering and dying Messiah by virtue of the 
prophecy, it is self-evident that he also pur- 
posed his resurrection: for a Messiah who 
was ultimately to succumb was a contradic- 
tion in himself. With these considerations 
all the predictions of the cross and resurrec- 
tion come to their true significance, which 
meaning, criticism, without any really his- 
torical reason, would like to expunge (Mark 
8. 31 ; 9. 31 ; 10. 33 sq.; 12. 10 sq.). To be 
sure everyone is at liberty to declare the 
whole material incredible : but to do this one 
must make up his mind that he can no longer 
proceed historically but dogmatically. If one 
allowed even a more important part to stand, 
a deeper going consideration could at once 
add numerous threads to other principal 
parts and we would thus get an indivisible 
whole. Over against this the question is: 
Does it seem more credible that such a mar- 
velous person as Jesus really existed — or that 
the believing church in a remarkably short 
time created such a harmonious picture, 
which after all was a misconception ? True 



Our Lord 67 

we cannot experience the consciousness of a 
man who in divine power forgave sin and 
yet awaited expiatory death and afterward 
the victory of the resurrection. But how 
could we when this man raised himself as 
"Lord" over all servants? 

Thus we have laid the foundation on 
which arises the other parts of the Messianic 
work. And here we can be brief, since it 
mainly concerns conclusions. We pointed 
out as the second part of the Messianic hope 
that God was to be near his people as a pro- 
tection and refuge. This is the next result 
of forgiveness, and as this was present in 
the person of the Lord, the same human 
form represented the otherwise distant God. 
On this we hardly ever find a theory in the 
mouth of Jesus, nevertheless the Lord speaks 
and acts from a consciousness which is based 
on this fact. The center and source of the 
unique consciousness of Jesus was not, as 
has been said, a new personal piety, but the 
confidence that he brought near and mediated 
to men God's grace and power. His per- 
sonal communion with God had to be taken 
into account for it only as a necessary basis. 
We have at least no document which inde- 



68 Our Lord 

pendent of Jesus' consciousness gives us an 
insight into his purely personal religious life. 
The reporters stood far below the Master, 
and it never occurred to them that they 
could trace the traits of his individual inner 
life. They looked up to him like a child to 
his father or a pupil to his teacher, who 
always saw and retained what the superior 
person intended for him and performed, and 
who could not suppose that like him the 
Master also had inward struggle. We might 
think it necessary to take up another point 
of view and for more accurate historical 
consideration bring the Lord Jesus down to 
our level as pupils, but if we tried it we 
would find ourselves left by our documentary 
material. We might then complain of the 
insufficient report and improvise for our- 
selves what might seem to us the most es- 
sential in the life of every man — or we might 
perceive that before us a Lord and Master 
actually stands whose life-content we appre- 
hend only in the side turned to us, but whose 
self-life remains a mystery inaccessible for 
all men because it is the life of the "Lord." 

The sublimest passage in the first three 
Gospels, in which Jesus speaks of his unique 



Our Lord 69 

relation to the Father and of his mediator- 
ship for all men, has recently been put to the 
account of a poet who found in it the most 
wondrous expression for Jesus' sense of his 
power (Matt. 11. 25 sqq.) : "Come unto me, 
all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I 
will give you rest." To be sure a matchless 
poet who struck the only proper key in a 
masterly manner ! But where a man speaks 
in this tone of supremacy he is not in the 
habit of adding: "I am meek and lowly in 
heart," and if he should do it, we should 
think it a ridiculous thing and judge it as 
a weakness of an otherwise great man. The 
unheard of yet living connection of high self- 
assurance and silent humility shows us that 
the picture of Jesus could not have been in- 
vented and strengthened belief in the right 
of his claim. And how little do we see into 
the depths of his own soul ! It must certainly 
turn out true that none knew the Father as 
did the Son : for otherwise he could not have 
revealed the Father and called every heavy 
laden man unto himself and his peace; but 
at the same time it remained true : "No man 
knoweth the Son, but the Father." We 
know him and yet know him not. His inner 



yo Our Lord 

life and personal communion with the Father 
were never unfolded before us but only so 
far quietly revealed that we might under- 
stand his mediatorial consciousness: "All 
things are delivered unto me of my Father." 
How should we feel after a man who spoke 
thus? We feel ourselves imperfect and 
needy — he knows himself as the Giver of 
all gifts. We feel ourselves as members — 
he knows himself as the head. It is true that 
his dependence on the Father remained, who 
delivered unto him all things — but over 
against all men Jesus stood in an otherwise 
unprecedented relation of superiority: who- 
ever bowed to him was as safe as with God 
himself. The matchless majesty of this word 
which could hardly be surpassed by a 
Johannine Jesus-discourse spoke for itself; 
but it advances perhaps into a still brighter 
light when we remember that according to 
a current rabbinic phrase one "takes upon 
himself the yoke of the law" or, "the yoke 
of the heavenly government," when one 
bowed to God and his will. Jesus put him- 
self beside this claim, and directed to his 
person that which otherwise belonged to God 
and God's law. 



Our Lord 71 

After that it cannot surprise us that the 
person of Jesus was the object of believing 
trust as otherwise only God was. "Come 
unto me" meant finally nothing else but "be- 
lieve on me !" Whether Jesus spoke literally 
of belief in his person may indeed be doubted 
if one confined himself to the material of the 
first three Gospels ; for the few passages in 
which Matthew used this formula (18. 6; 
2j. 42), Mark (9. 42; 15. 32) gave in gen- 
eral form that the question was of belief in 
general. But positively it is unquestionable 
that a relation of personal trust, such as 
Jesus wished and demanded, deserved to be 
called believing on him. When he promised 
the bodily or psychical sick (Mark 5. 34; 
10. 52; Luke 7. 50) : "Thy faith hath made 
thee whole," and rejoiced over the faith 
which he found (Matt. 8. 10; see 9. 2), be- 
lief in God was certainly not alone meant. 
As a matter of course, the question concern- 
ing God also was (Mark 11. 22), but the 
main thing was belief in that personality to 
which the people came with their requests, 
in which they perceived the presence of 
God and the divine powers of the King- 
dom. Thus one would have to judge the 



J2 Our Lord 

more certainly whom he saw that Jesus 
made participation in the Kingdom of heaven 
and the communion with God dependent on 
the reception of his person (Mark 9. 37) : 
"Whosoever shall receive one of such chil- 
dren in my name, receiveth me: and who- 
soever shall receive me, receiveth not me but 
him that sent me." With another turn it 
could also be said that one received the King- 
dom of God when he came to Jesus (Mark 
10. 14 sq.) : "Suffer the little children to 
come unto me. . . . Whosoever shall 
not receive the Kingdom, of God as a little 
child, he shall not enter therein/' For in 
Jesus the Kingdom of God had appeared 
upon earth. According to a word trans- 
mitted by Luke (17. 21), against which, 
perhaps, at most suspicion can be raised, be- 
cause the third evangelist only has it, one 
need wait no more for the Kingdom of God, 
nor seek for outward signs of its being near. 
Jesus said to his contemporaries — not : "It is 
within you/' this he would have granted 
least of all to the Pharisees — but : "It stands 
in your midst," namely, in my person, since 
I am the King of the Kingdom. The 
theocracy had commenced where Jesus was 



Our Lord 73 

and was received. Jesus is the King whom 
God had appointed, the throne which he had 
established on earth. The miracles of Jesus, 
especially his power over demons, proved 
that the central forces of the Kingdom of 
God were already at hand and at work 
(Matt. 12. 28) : "But if I cast out devils by 
the Spirit of God, then the Kingdom of God 
is come unto you/' That God would really 
become master of resisting nature was 
merely a question of time. Jesus and his 
power served as a pledge of the consumma- 
tion of the Kingdom. In it God exercised 
his dominion inwardly and for a beginning 
also outwardly. Whom Jesus sheltered 
was under the protection of God. 

From this there results as an inevit- 
able consequence the third and last part: 
The vision of the world and judgment of the 
world through Jesus. In the saying of the 
Lord : "Come unto me all," he purposed the 
call of the world. We do not think here of 
the mechanical inference that, if all should 
come, all must be called. For who will tell 
whether the humanity in its full extent stood 
before the soul of the Lord when he said 
this? We would not even quarrel about 



74 Our Lord 

words, but simply say : when Jesus, accord- 
ing to the testimony of the first Gospels, put 
himself in a very unexampled manner in the 
center of humanity, it was at any rate in- 
trinsically logical that he knew that his 
Gospel and his person were appointed for the 
entire human race. Against this conclusion 
a few statements according to which he 
meant to have been sent only to the lost 
sheep of Israel (Matt. 15. 24; see 10. 6) are 
of no account; for beside them stand others 
which speak of a preaching of the gospel 
throughout the whole world (Mark 13. 10; 
14. 9). Was Jesus less discerning and more 
narrow-minded than the prophets who, in 
the distant future, saw all Gentiles walk 
in the light of Jehovah and ascribed to 
the servant of the Lord the task not only 
to raise up the tribes of Israel, but to 
bring salvation to the end of the world? 
(Isa. 2. 2 sqq. ; Micah 4. 1 sqq. ; Isa. 
49. 6; see Zeph. 3. 9; Zech. 14. 9, 16.) 
The miracle, that the evangelists with- 
out the precedent of Jesus had first coined 
the words of a world-mission, and this at a 
time when one could rather believe them 
than see, would be greater than that the 



Our Lord 75 

Lord himself had glanced at all nations and 
future generations. Why did he reserve the 
preaching of the gospel in all the world to 
his disciples and his church, whereas he con- 
fined himself to Israel? In the Sermon on 
the Mount Jesus said to the disciples (Matt. 
5. 14) : "Ye are the light of the world." 
There is only one single enigmatical w r ord 
which seems to militate against this obvious 
word (Matt. 10. 23) : "Ye shall not have 
gone over the cities of Israel till the Son of 
man be come." If it were really not allowed 
to interpret this expression with reference 
to the coming of Jesus to the judgment over 
Jerusalem, nothing would be left than to 
suppose a misunderstanding of the recorder. 
That Jesus should have expected his per- 
sonal advent and the end of the world in 
that present generation, was absolutely pre- 
cluded — not only because we could not be- 
lieve him capable of such an error, but be- 
cause a word from his lips which could not 
have been invented, was recorded which 
says the opposite (Mark 13. 32) : "But of 
that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, 
neither the Son, but the Father." Or is it 
imaginable that fiction, which only enhanced 



j6 Our Lord 

and magnified the picture of Jesus, should 
for a change have ascribed to him also a 
word of self-limitation. A dogmatically 
unbiased judgment rather sees in this state- 
ment the unimpeachable standard for seem- 
ingly or really deviating discourses (also for 
Matt. 1 6. 28; Mark 9. 1). 

In the closest connection with the offer of 
the gospel to the whole world stands the be- 
lief that Jesus shall judge the world. If 
any thought pervades the three first gospels 
it is this, that the eternal destiny of men 
depended on their relation to Jesus. A 
worse judgment than that over Sodom and 
Gomorrha will come upon him who care- 
lessly passed by the deeds of the Lord or the 
preaching of his message (Matt. 10. 15; 
11. 23 sq.). Whosoever confessed Jesus, 
him would he confess before his Father 
which is in heaven ; whosoever should deny 
him, him will he deny (Matt. 10. 32). 
Though it is not directly said that this 
should take place in the last judgment, yet 
everything points to this end (see Mark 
8. 38). At all events one must think of the 
last judgment when Jesus at the close of his 
Sermon on the Mount shuts the door of the 



Our Lord 77 

Kingdom of heaven upon such who said, 
"Lord, Lord," without doing the will of his 
Father (Matt. 7. 21 sqq.). Whenever 
Jesus called himself the "Son of man" he 
saw himself almost always in the position of 
judge of the world (Matt. 13. 41; 16. 27; 
19. 28; 24. 27 sqq.; 44 sqq.; 25. 31 sqq.; 
26. 64) . It could hardly be doubted that he 
applied to himself Daniel's prophecy of the 
son of man whom God invested with his 
everlasting Kingdom (Dan. 7. 13 sqq.). If 
one cannot bring himself to do away with 
the sublime title in general, he should plainly 
acknowledge that its essential meaning was 
just this that it attributed to the "Son of 
man" the judgment of the world. Why 
should it be inconceivable that Jesus, "who 
with matchless energy impressed on the 
soul of his disciples the fear of the Al- 
mighty God, who could destroy both body 
and soul in hell" (Matt. 10. 28), "could 
have awarded to himself world-judgeship in 
the place of God"? This is exactly as little 
inconceivable as when he directed men im- 
mediately to God and yet at the same time 
connected them with his own person. The 
Lord had no idea that his action differed 



78 Our Lord 

from God's action, so that God no longer 
judged the world if Jesus did it. Instead of 
critically collating what entirely accorded 
in Jesus' thoughts, we should rather have 
here seen an indication that also such state- 
ments of the Lord which had no metaphys- 
ical coloring, often betrayed a consciousness 
of that which we call his divinity : for it is 
remarkable indeed that Jesus ascribes judg- 
ment both to himself and the Father. For 
any mere human person this were a contra- 
diction. On the whole a man to whom all 
that we have said of Jesus would apply, 
would, properly speaking, veil God, but Jesus 
revealed him and remained completely trans- 
parent for him — the decisive mark that he 
was really one with God. When one has felt 
this in the forgiveness of sin, which power 
the Son of man exercised, he will not 
scruple that Jesus intended to be the judge 
of the world. The one is rather the reverse 
of the other ; and it is not accidentally that 
the title "Son of man" is also used in those 
sayings in which the future judge of the 
world showed himself in his preceding 
earthly life as the dispenser of grace (Mark 
2. 10 ; io. 45) : "The Son of man hath power 



Our Lord 79 

on earth to forgive sins." "The Son of man 
came to minister, and to give his life a ran- 
som for many." 

Thus everything harmonizes again in a 
most admirable manner. But aside from this 
impression of the inner harmony of the 
transmitted words, we have also good rea- 
son to leave the statements of the world- 
judgeship as they were in the mouth of 
Jesus. We have here also a saying which 
could not be invented because it knew of a 
limit for Jesus, which his congregation had 
certainly not imputed to him. When the 
sons of Zebedee asked for places on the right 
hand and on the left hand of their heavenly 
King, Jesus answered (Mark 10. 40) : "It 
is not mine to give, but it shall be given to 
them for whom it is prepared." The fact 
that he should return to glory is allowed, 
but the right of disposing of honors was re- 
served to the Father. But when Jesus comes 
again, he will not appear in an undefinable 
glory which only means that his work was 
not destroyed, but he appears for the judg- 
ment of the world, the man whom the coun- 
cil of his people judged, would himself be 
the judge of all men (Mark 14. 62). 



80 Our Lord 

It is probably a result of respect for Jesus, 
therefore a dogmatical judgment, when 
some modern theologians deny that he 
claimed for himself the judgment of the 
world. He who has lost all relation to Jesus 
will not doubt that the noble enthusiast as- 
cended this dizzy height also ; for the records 
speak too clearly. But whoever would 
adore him in his morally-religious heroic 
greatness, and yet not acknowledge him as 
such as our Scriptures represent him, will at 
least take the most offensive burden from 
this greatest among the sons of men. For it 
were indeed not simply confusion in contem- 
poraneous ideas but blasphemy and madness 
when a man sat himself down directly on 
God's judgment-seat, unless God had placed 
him there. Thus this investigation of the 
material of the "oldest sources" comes back 
again to its starting-point; we stand before a 
question of belief and religious experience 
which is found in Jesus. Efforts to break 
some larger stones from the harmonious 
building of tradition are futile efforts. The 
picture of the Jesus who presented himself 
as God's representative upon earth and in 
the future judgment, and believed that the 



Our Lord 8i 

weal and woe of all men was put into his 
hand, shall remain, and the question is: 
Madness or truth? Nor can we avoid 
this staggering, simple question when the 
prophecy of a modern is fulfilled : "Modern 
theology will once become very honest/' We 
would plainly exclaim in the face of the most 
enhanced claims of Jesus which exceeded 
everything human and yet betrayed nothing 
of fanatical excitement (John 10. 21): 
"These are not the words of him that hath 
a devil/' Rather : "It is the Lord." 

To this knowledge one may come if, as we 
have thus far, he has in view the practical 
religious side of the relation of Jesus to hu- 
manity. One is often too quick with his 
opinion that belief in Jesus' "metaphysical," 
that is, essential divine sonship, is a later 
product, because there is nothing of it in the 
first three Gospels. As a matter of course 
the belief in Jesus did not originate with 
such perceptions. The nearest and first was 
the impression of his person, and even today 
a correct perception of his divine nature, 
without a corresponding, personal relation 
can be outranked by an honest trust in the 
person of the Lord and a sincere obedience 



82 Our Lord 

which knows nothing, perhaps, of deeper 
mysteries. Practical religious attitude 
toward the Lord will always remain the es- 
sential thing ; and much is already gained if 
we can convince ourselves that according to 
the first gospels the self-consciousness of 
Jesus answers to the confession of his 
church, that he is the Lord, and that with 
forgiveness of sin and God's presence, he 
will exactly give that which his believers are 
conscious of having received from him. 
The deep and decisively separating trench 
runs not between the different theological 
groups which profess Jesus in the sense of 
a practical belief in him as the Lord to whom 
the Father has transmitted all his revelation, 
but lays, perhaps, more or less stress on 
metaphysical perceptions : it rather separates 
confessors of the only "Lord" from the mere 
admirers of the most powerful religious 
hero that ever existed. When in our Bible 
the documents of the primitive apostolic 
faith, which thus far we allowed to speak 
alone, testify of a belief in the Lord which 
is satisfied with actual connection with the 
person of Christ, who is put by the side of 
God, without penetrating however into other 



Our Lord 83 

depths, we shall have to acknowledge such 
belief as Christian, for it is founded on es- 
sential parts of apostolic tradition. 

Over against this, the latest "religio-his- 
torical" sketch, whose main point is to do 
away with Jesus' own belief in his sal- 
vation-mediatorship, and put in its place 
an enhanced prophetical consciousness, 
must get rid of the earliest stratum of 
tradition and construct an entirely new 
picture of Jesus back of the records. 
At the same time criticism of the records 
which obtrudes itself upon every scientific- 
historical w r orking is wholly displaced; 
there is a shifting of the entire matter 
of fact where the question is no longer 
the credibility of even the most essen- 
tial traits of the biblical picture of Jesus. 
The historical Jesus transmitted to us wished 
to be accepted as the "Lord" in the sense in 
which his church confessed him : in the judg- 
ment and downfall of the world communion 
with him was to bring salvation. Whoever 
will not admit this, nor that the real Jesus 
was capable of such aspirations, may con- 
sider the entire tradition as untrustworthy: 
but he must not claim confidence for the 



84 Our Lord 

scientific reconstruction he puts in its place. 
A believing church does not live on scientific 
possibility, but on certainty. This percep- 
tion will not trouble him who attaches no 
value to historical revelation; for he needs 
no eternal point in history on which he can 
rest, though the traits of the Father with 
those of the Son may be obliterated. But 
whoever knows that the sure possession of 
God is connected with intercourse with 
Jesus, will always declare that the trans- 
mitted picture of Jesus cannot have been 
devised. He can certainly employ criticism 
and distinguish between sources of the first 
and lesser order : but somewhere in the tra- 
dition he will gain a footing and abide by 
that which is given, perhaps not in every de- 
tail, but in the principal facts. To believe in 
the historical manifestation in Jesus and at 
the same time to despair of the trustworthi- 
ness of his historically transmitted picture — 
is a contradiction in itself. One may make 
the domain of trustworthy writings very 
narrow: but if this possession is really re- 
tained, one stands on tangible ground from 
which he can proceed further. In this sense 
we have thus far adhered to the few sources 



Our Lord 85 

which are considered as the oldest on the life 
of Jesus. 

In addition to this the majority of the 
New Testament writings represent a 
further developed estimate of Christ. The 
Epistles of Paul which may have been writ- 
ten before the oldest gospel-writings, con- 
fess, with full clearness not only a Christ 
whose life runs into the eternal theocracy, 
but whose origin lies also in eternity. He 
who became obedient unto death, even the 
death of the cross, and therefore received the 
name over all names, was already in the 
form of God : by his humiliation he acquired 
only what belonged to him from eternity 
(Phil. 2. 6 sqq.). He became poor for our 
sakes, that through his poverty we might be 
rich (2 Cor. 8. 9). Whoever realizes that 
according to Paul God "sent forth his son 
into the world," like his eternal Spirit (Gal. 
4. 4, 6; see Rom. 8. 3, 32), will thereby not 
merely think of the kind condescension of 
the earthly Christ, but of his descent from 
heaven to earth. A Christ, who as the ex- 
alted is the Lord and is treated like God, 
must always have been of divine nature. For 
God did not come into existence; he is 



86 Our Lord 

eternal. Such thoughts are a necessity where 
one perceives an apotheosis as the abomina- 
tion of all abominations. If Christ is really 
the Lord, the eternal God appears in him. 
After all it is incredible that for Paul Christ 
should have been a heavenly being already 
existing before his earthly appearance, but 
without any real divine character. Against 
this supposition speaks also the fact that the 
apostle once at least called the Lord Christ 
plainly "God," "blessed forever" (Rom. 
9. 5 ; see also 1 Tim. 3. 16) : he, who accord- 
ing to the flesh came from Israel, was ac- 
cording to the other side of his being eternal 
God. This understanding could only be 
evaded by establishing a very desperate sen- 
tence : "From Israel comes Christ according 
to the flesh. He, who is over all, God, be 
blessed for ever." 

John established the divinity of Christ in 
the form that he identified the Lord with 
the eternal creative word of God. In this 
unique fact is found the explanation that 
Jesus called all men unto himself and could 
offer something to all — as the evangelist says 
(John 1. 16) : "Of his fullness have all we 
received, and grace for grace." Even the 



Our Lord 87 

most comprehensive spirit has only a limited 
circle which he can influence; the limit of 
his time and nation, as well as of his indi- 
viduality, confine him. Men may be influ- 
enced by him for a time and perhaps sacrifice 
their own peculiarity to genius : but thereby 
they do not become free, but bound. He 
who wholly enslaves himself to a man is 
stretched or pressed into a bed of Procrustes, 
so that he becomes crippled. A limited hu- 
man character can only attract congenial 
characters and captivate them for a length of 
time. But on the side of Jesus experience 
confirms how right he was with his excla- 
mation: "Come all unto me!" He who 
comes to him does not feel himself belittled 
in his nature, but free and great. This can 
only be understood when this man is seen to 
be something else and something greater 
than an historical-human individual. He is 
not a word of God, the expression of a 
divine thought, but the word in which the 
Creator embodied his whole plan of the 
world and humanity. If one harmonizes 
with Jesus, he finds his way back to the 
original image as God devised and conceived 
it, and by reason of this he becomes free. 



88 Our Lord 

Jesus is the creative word by which God 
called the world into existence. What else 
could he be if, as the evangelist was con- 
vinced and experienced, he meant to be an 
eternal divine being, and yet could not be 
the Father himself to whom he prayed? 
The history of creation a solution of the 
enigma offered : "In the beginning God cre- 
ated the heaven and the earth." Since he 
created them by his word, the evangelist 
(John i. i sqq. ; see I John I. I sqq.) can 
inferentially say: "In the beginning the 
word already was" — and it was with God; 
and since nothing else yet existed than God, 
it had to be itself something in or of God : 
"The word was of divine essence." This 
eternal, divine creative word to which all 
beings owed their existence contained light 
and life for creation, and man would have so 
much life as he took from the creative word 
and power of God. All this the evangelist 
could develop from the history of creation 
without speaking of Jesus in the first verses 
of his book. But he continues (John I. 14) : 
"And the word was made flesh, and dwelt 
among us, and we beheld his glory." For in 
Jesus, the man of flesh and blood, he expe- 



Our Lord 89 

rienced what could not be said of a mere 
man born of the flesh, but only of God's 
creative word: "In him was life; and the 
life was the light of men." This would 
doubtless be the trend of the thoughts with 
which John obtained the experience he had 
of his Master, in whom his soul found the 
peace which could only be the peace of God. 
What he meant becomes, perhaps, more 
transparent when we add a like thought of 
Paul. Jesus is the image of God (2 Cor. 
4. 4). This may perhaps be so understood 
with reference to the earthly life, that in the 
human form God's essence w 7 as reflected — 
perhaps in the sense of the word (John 
14. 9) : "He that hath seen me hath seen the 
Father."' From Jesus' gracious work we 
can read aloud the Father's love and power. 
But then the question arises: How can a 
human image so fully coincide with God's 
image ? The answer is : we have not to do 
with a common portrait which must ever be 
limited, but with the original itself, of which 
the history of creation says (Gen. 1. 27) : 
"God created man in his own image." As 
according to John the eternal word of God 
was made flesh, thus according to Paul God's 



90 Our Lord 

own image after which we were formed, ap- 
peared in the ranks of men (Col. I. 15 sq. ; 
see 2. 9). Whoever is stamped with this 
mark is not spoiled or marred, but restored 
to his true nature, he is freed (2 Cor. 3. 17 
sq.) : "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there 
is liberty . . . and we are changed into 
the same image, even as by the Spirit of the 
Lord." 

We see, therefore, how the apostles sought 
supports in order to make clear to them- 
selves what surpassing greatness they had in 
their Lord. It is possible that by virtue of 
practical relation to Jesus, one may be a 
true Christian and show little inclination to 
further pursue such often difficult trains 
of thought. But that the apostles already 
took them up is a hint that a consequent be- 
lief could not dispense with them. When 
one is in earnest with the fact of experience, 
a realization that Jesus is "the Lord/' who 
stands in place of God, he cannot be satisfied 
with the assumption that he was a man in 
the ranks of other men. True, he is this — 
but he is more : God, manifested in the flesh. 
Simple faith may feel little need for further 
speculations — yet all the practical religious 



Our Lord 91 

statements which we put together will seem 
to him like soaring in the air as soon as this 
background disappears; therefore no more 
and no less hangs on this "metaphysical" 
substructure than the unshaken truth and 
sincerity of our belief in the Lord. One 
must not therefore be surprised that the 
ancient church fought with tenacity for the 
eternal Godhead of the Son and belief in the 
Trinity : which proves that she was in earnest 
with her belief in Jesus as the Lord. Other 
founders of religion may have been invested 
now and then by their votaries with divine 
glory, but since a real mental struggle con- 
cerning the essential relation of the respec- 
tive man to deity nowhere followed, one 
must infer that on the whole such glorifica- 
tion consisted only in hyperbolic phrases. 
In Christianity only is the problem offered, 
because here one seriously believes he meets 
with God himself in the human Master. He 
who on this account wholly puts aside this 
problem will probably break the vessel in 
which alone he can retain belief in the Lord. 
After all we cannot entirely pass by a final 
side-question : How did Jesus himself think 
of his essentially divine sonship? Even his 



92 Our Lord 

sublimest sayings from the first Gospels with 
which we had to do, contained no undis- 
guised "metaphysical" statements. Faith 
will plainly conclude that he who spake thus 
must have had a divine consciousness. But, 
if we nowhere find points to support it, it 
might be bold to attribute something to 
Jesus which not he but his disciples only 
claimed for him. It is easily seen that 
judgment on this question depends on one's 
attitude toward the Gospel of John. Who- 
ever sees in the Jesus-discourses of this book 
historical materials, will not doubt divine 
consciousness of Jesus. He will so arrange 
the relation of the different gospels that the 
first Gospels shall report and transmit the 
discourses of the Lord which were designed 
more for popular understanding, whereas 
it shall be reserved to the beloved disciple to 
give still deeper looks into Jesus' divine es- 
sence, for the decisive words were spoken in 
the closest circle of the disciples (for in- 
stance John 14. 9 sqq. ; 16. 28; 17. 5, 24). 
Nevertheless such an assumption would be 
inadmissible unless the oldest sources pointed 
suggestively at least in a like direction. In 
seeking such traces we come upon unsafe 



Our Lord 93 

ground : for this much is certain, that Jesus, 
who intended that faith should come from 
within, did not surprise his hearers by for- 
cible manifestation of his divine conscious- 
ness. We must not, therefore, expect inten- 
tional statements from the start, but only 
such words as open an adequate prospect. 

In this connection we must ask for the 
meaning of the title "Son of God," which 
we have laid aside till now. That this title 
had a metaphysical meaning with Paul and 
John, no one will dispute today. When 
Jesus is called "the only begotten Son" of 
God (John 1. 14; 3. 16; 1 John 4. 9; see 
Rom. 8. 32), he is incomparably more than 
a first-born : he is the Son of God in a sense 
in which no other man is nor ever can be. 
He is essentially one with the Father — as 
"true God, begotten of the Father in eter- 
nity." And by this very belief the apostles 
intended to make it clear that God deals with 
humanity through Jesus far otherwise than 
in any event or phenomenon of history 
which is influenced by him. When the 
Father gave his only begotten Son, he tore 
the best from his heart, and the appearance 
of Jesus proved not only the Father's love, 



94 Our Lord 

but was really its proof. Thus belief in 
Jesus' divinity became the bulwark of the 
Gospel, that is, of the true manifestation of 
grace. Everywhere else was law and doc- 
trine — here alone it was God who gave him- 
self in his Son. By this Christianity differs 
from every other religion: it stands funda- 
mentally upon a different and unique foun- 
dation. This "absoluteness" of Christianity 
depends finally on the metaphysical meaning 
of the title of its founder. It would, there- 
fore, have had serious consequences if the 
apostles against Jesus' own will had first 
given it a metaphysical meaning. 

In many passages "Son of God" may 
mean nothing else than the "King of Israel," 
or "Messiah" (Mark 3. 11 ; 8. 29; see Matt. 
16. 16) : because God had already promised 
his special fatherly protection to the ruler of 
the people (2 Sam. 7. 14 sq. ; Psa. 2. j). 
But if Jesus knew himself as the Son of God, 
he had possessed a personal content long be- 
fore he could think of the Messianic title. 
Could the story have been invented that 
when only twelve years of age he had to be 
about his Father's business? (Luke 2. 49.) 
At that time he was God's Son because he 



Our Lord 95 

stood in the most intimate personal child- 
relation to his heavenly Father. If one could 
have interpreted his experience at the bap- 
tism as the awakening of the Messianic con- 
sciousness, then the personal possession took 
the shape of the calling (Mark 1. 11): 
"Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am 
well pleased." Jesus did not shape his con- 
sciousness according to the outward title: 
but because he was personally secure in his 
Father, he could become for others a leader 
to the divine sonship. This was for him the 
essential character of the Messianic office — 
and when he accepted the current Messianic 
title, "Son of God," he filled it with just 
these contents. But the personal child-rela- 
tion of Jesus is wholly matchless, he was the 
mediator for the others. Thus resulted state- 
ments which brought this son into a near- 
ness with God which could not be reached 
by younger sons (Matt. 11. 2j) : "No man 
knoweth the Father, but the Son; neither 
knoweth any man the Son, save the Father." 
That Jesus as Son of God, in spite of all 
communion with his brothers and sisters, 
reserved to himself his peculiar position, fol- 
lows also from the fact which we have al- 



g6 Our Lord 

ready noticed, that he never put himself with 
an "Our Father" in the same order with 
men. True the Father of Jesus is through 
him also the Father of believers : but there 
remains an essential gradation which must 
mean more than the difference of prede- 
cessor and successor. Here a mysterious 
reality reveals itself, which goes beyond a 
unique religious relation. Upon such a 
background only the solemn stress became 
intelligible by which Jesus plainly designated 
himself as "the Son" (Mark 13. 32; see also 
Matt. 12. 32) : "But of that day and that 
hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels 
which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the 
Father." What being was this who over all 
angels comes into the most immediate pres- 
ence of the Father ? And how peerless must 
he have stood as "the Son" beside "the 
Father!" That such words which suggest 
a limit to Jesus' knowledge or work are 
hardly invented we have already noticed. 
The matchless blending of greatness and 
lowliness is the stamp of their genuineness 
— and at the same time a guarantee of their 
truth. Thus only spoke the only Son of the 
Father. We need only recall the question 



Our Lord 97 

which Jesus put to the Pharisees with refer- 
ence to the one hundred and tenth psalm 
(Mark 12. 37) : How could David call the 
Messiah Lord if he is only his Son ? That 
in the Messianic title "Son of God" the Jews 
also apprehended at least something of es- 
sential dignity, we learn from the examina- 
tion before the high priest (Mark 14. 61 
sqq.). Without this supposition one would 
not regard it as "blasphemy/' that Jesus 
meant to be "the Christ, the Son of the 
Blessed." The two elements of the Mes- 
sianic expectation that on the one hand 
God himself, on the other a hero was to ap- 
pear in his power, were about to be blended 
together. 

This foundation being firmly established, 
other statements may also open an awe-in- 
spiring revelation of Jesus' divine Messianic 
consciousness. Is it really only this earthly 
man and not God's majestic presence, God's 
essential representative, which cries (Matt. 
2 3- 37) : "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that 
killest the prophets, and stonest them which 
are sent unto thee, how often would I have 
gathered thy children together, even as a hen 
gathereth her chickens under her wings"? 



98 Our Lord 

Whoever considers the first Gospels which 
knew of no repeated festive-journeys to Je- 
rusalem, as authoritative over against the 
Gospel of John, has the least right to think 
here of the repeated efforts of Jesus to gain 
the people: "And ye would not" — says the 
God who in the Old Testament history had 
already vainly pleaded with the people 
through his prophets (verse 34 sqq.), into 
whose address Jesus entered unaffectedly 
without the usual prophetical introduction, 
"Thus saith the Lord." Thus one might 
think rather, since in the end it could only 
refer to God, that he gathered the people as 
a hen her chickens, since in the Old Testa- 
ment also he was spoken of in like manner 
(Deut. 32. n ; Isa. 31. 5). When Jesus saw 
his people as sheep not having a shepherd 
(Mark 6. 34; see Luke 15. 4; John 10. 12), 
we can adduce as Old Testament copy the 
words of Moses, who asked God for an able 
successor, that the congregation of the Lord 
be not as sheep which have no shepherd 
(Num. 2j. 17). We shall also have to think 
of such passages in which God promised that 
He would shepherd his sheep (Ezek. 34. 5, 
1 1 sq. ; Isa. 40. 10 sq. ; compare Matt. 25. 33, 



Our Lord 99 

with Ezek. 34. 17). Also when Jesus called 
himself the bridegroom of his disciple-group 
(Mark 2. 19; Matt. 25. 6), he took the place 
of God, who in the Old Testament was 
Israel's husband (Hos. 2. 19; Isa. 54. 5). 

This brings us to a last observation. The 
Old Testament "congregation of Jehovah" 
(Num. 27. 17; Deut. 23. 1), when Israel 
rejected its king, was repeated in the congre- 
gation of Jesus. When Jesus said that he 
would build his church upon the profession 
of his Messiahship, he intended to occupy 
the same position in the face of his people as 
the covenant-God had in his chosen people 
(Matt. 16. 18) : "Thou art Peter, and upon 
this rock I will build my church." Conse- 
quently we have arrived again, reached 
our starting-point — Jesus is the Lord, 
the historical manifestation of God the 
Lord, around whom the salvation-congre- 
gation was gathered; and Jesus himself 
claimed this position. Whether Peter 
said (Acts 2. 21): "Whosoever shall 
call on the name of the Lord shall be 
saved" — or as Jesus promised to the 
church of his confessors : "The gates of hell 



ioo Our Lord 

shall not prevail against it," it was only a 
different expression of the same truth. It is 
true that critical theologians are almost one 
in declaring the words about the church 
(Matt. 16. 18 sqq.; 18. 17 sqq.) to be un- 
historical. It is very probable that they did 
not stand in the original collection of Mat- 
thew; but on this account they can be as 
little denied to Jesus himself as the parables 
transmitted by Luke ( 15. 3 sqq. ; 18. 9 sqq.), 
which were also not contained in the oldest 
source of the discourses. The judgment on 
such gleaned pieces will always depend on 
the impression which one receives from 
them. Are they possible or not in Jesus' 
sphere of ideas ? The answer to this ques- 
tion depends in the present case on this, 
whether Jesus clearly foresaw that his peo- 
ple would reject him. Was Jesus the Lord, 
as on whom his congregation believed, then 
this cannot be denied. But then we must 
affirm that he was deeply concerned about 
the church of his professors which was to 
take the place of the people of Israel. In 
the account of the Gospel of Matthew every- 
thing harmonizes admirably. After the 
disciples were ripe for a personal profession 



Our Lord ioi 

of Jesus as the Messiah and Son of the Liv- 
ing God, and Peter made it in their name, 
the Lord declared that such profession, and 
not belonging to Israel according to the 
flesh, would decide the boundaries of the 
eternal church of God; for he knew and 
declared at once that Israel should kill their 
Messiah. Nevertheless he remained the vic- 
torious Lord : and for the true congregation 
of the Lord which adhered to him, no 
longer the flesh but the Spirit should prevail. 
Jesus abided by his people as the living head 
(Matt. 1 8. 20) : "Where two or three are 
gathered together in my name, there am I 
in the midst of them" — thus in the divine 
presence. These words surprisingly accord 
with a Talmudic saying, which may not nec- 
essarily have been coined after the saying of 
Jesus (Pirke Abot 3. 3) : "Where two meet 
and occupy themselves with the law, the 
Shechina (that is God's presence) is among 
them." Has the law as well as the Shechina 
been exchanged in the New Testament say- 
ing for Jesus ? In that case we have a new 
proof that Jesus is and will be the essential 
exhibition and self-realization of God in the 
world. And with reference to still another 



102 Our Lord 

point our inquiry returns to the beginning. 
In both alleged passages the professors or 
the congregation gathered around the name 
of Jesus, are given the keys of the King- 
dom of heaven, or the right to bind and 
loose. This certainly meant that the for- 
giveness of sins which Jesus exercised was 
to be propagated in the church of his fol- 
lowers — but there onfy. Whoever believed 
in the self-evident love of God would not 
very highly estimate such a promise or think 
it strange. But whoever perceived and 
knew of the active dealing of God with sin- 
ful humanity and knew that his grace in 
the only begotten Son permanently estab- 
lished itself in the history of mankind, he 
would perceive that grace, forgiveness and 
the presence of God are only obtained 
where one belongs to the people of the 
"Lord," who in the Spirit is personally pres- 
ent with his people. Nor would he find it 
impossible that the Lord, who bodily de- 
parted from his earthly congregation and 
personally w r as with it, gave the commission 
(Matt. 28. 19) : "Go ye therefore, and teach 
all nations, baptizing them in the name of 
the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy 



Our Lord 103 

Ghost, teaching them to observe all things 
whatsoever I have commanded you." 

We are at the close. It turns out that 
the way to the full heights of belief in the 
divinity of our Lord is open, if one only 
accepts the substantial claims which the 
Jesus of the oldest sources makes. His- 
torical uncertainties — especially in the ma- 
terials, which we touched upon lastly — and 
unsolved dogmatic questions abound. The 
fundamental position, however, is religiously 
and scientifically justified. For whether one 
looks for still another Jesus behind the oldest 
sources does not depend upon science, but 
on belief or disbelief in the "Lord." In this 
department nothing can be obtained by force 
when the first suppositions are wanting. 
We may and must satisfy ourselves with this, 
that faith may very well exist not in spite 
of the sources, but through the sources. 
Thus a good conscience will unite with 
religious certainty. 



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